


Contrapunctus

by doomperfect



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Adult Sothis (Fire Emblem), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, Female My Unit | Byleth, Fish Puns, Gen, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags, POV Multiple, Professor Jeralt, Student My Unit | Byleth, Student Sothis, edelthis? sothelgard?, no beta we die like Glenn, simultaneous rarepair and newpair hell, spoilers for all routes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:54:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 23
Words: 150,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25071223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomperfect/pseuds/doomperfect
Summary: Sitri Eisner is gifted beyond her architect’s expectations, but even she cannot stop the river of fate. She burns bright in life and tumbles early into an unmarked grave, leaving in her wake a grieving husband and a peculiarly quiet child.But Sitri was bornsmart, so on her deathbed she does not try to hold back the river; she diverts it instead. Twenty-one years later, its currents fade to reveal a blue-haired mercenary... and her green-haired twin sister, who carry Fódlan into its future.Edelgard could never have seenthiscoming.(An AU in which Byleth and Sothis grow up as siblings, and take their world by storm.)
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic/Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Caspar von Bergliez/Linhardt von Hevring, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Claude von Riegan, Dorothea Arnault/Ingrid Brandl Galatea, Edelgard von Hresvelg/Sothis, Flayn & My Unit | Byleth, Jeralt Reus Eisner/My Unit | Byleth's Mother, Marianne von Edmund/Hilda Valentine Goneril, Minor or Background Relationship(s), My Unit | Byleth & Sothis
Comments: 224
Kudos: 286





	1. Prelude: An Inevitable Exposition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _contrapunctus_ , (n.): _The technique of combining two or more melodic lines in such a way that they establish a harmonic relationship while retaining their linear individuality._
> 
> (i could never have seen this coming, either)

In the Imperial year 1180, in a land unsullied by war for many decades, a village rests. Nestled between two countries and in the bosom of the behemoth that houses the foundation of the Goddess’ Church, calamity has never had much of a chance to sink its talons into this forgotten place.

It is a perfectly ordinary village, by any standard of the word. The edges of the place are flanked by a forest on one side, and gentle stream on the other; someway along the stream a watermill makes its mark. Two buildings down, the awnings of a much-beloved bakery announce their presence by way of gently swaying lantern. A stone’s throw away, colourful inns and shops selling baubles and trinkets dot the landscape; it is not hard to imagine the people milling about here with the thrum of peaceful noise, though at present all is still. The villagers’ livelihoods give way gently to rows of simple time-worn houses further into the heart of the village — some are propped up by windmills, some stand on their own, but all are clearly labours of time and love.

There is indeed much love writ into the bones of this place, for its presence at the base of the Oghma mountains has long since given it the chance to become a haven and a shelter for all — Oghma is the bedrock upon which the mighty wings of the Goddess rest, after all, and they are surely the best protection any little hamlet in Fódlan can be given.

It is in one of the larger groups of houses near the woods that a mercenary company rests, and it is inside one of the smaller ones that a young woman dreams. In a different world, in a different Imperial year, she may have dreamt of a ferocious battle; of a woman hellbent on vengeance against the usurpers who tore her family from her and of a man seeking to make his mark on history, the steady _drum-drum-drum_ of the hoofbeats of war surrounding their deadly dance. She may have dreamt, too, of a girl surrounded by darkness on an ancient throne of rock; in the dream in this different world, the girl’s sleeping visage would have been gently illuminated by an unearthly green beam that seemed to fall from the infinities above. The girl would have woken in this dream, though the young woman who dreamt of her would remember nothing but her gently resting form and the faint regret of a name forgotten.

This is not that different world; the throne is empty, and no heavenly rays illumine it. The young woman called Byleth in the waking world dreams instead of the much-beloved bakery… and the fish-shaped cream puff pastry she ate there.

A door’s noisy creak and the heavyset stomp of a man’s boots shake her from the dream. She remembers; the puff pastry had a creamy, decadent center flanked by crisp, flaky crust. She remembers more; she had been wheedled into trying _something sweet for once, Byleth, I do not understand why you must eat your blasted fish all the time!_ and had given in on the condition that her _something sweet_ be familiar in form, at least, if not in how it tasted.

She remembers fully, regrets, and announces her regret to the stomping of heavyset boots that are unfortunately attached to an owner who will not give in to her plaintive whining for _five more minutes please_. She knows; she has tried before. This does not stop her from trying again, with predictable results.

“I hate you, Dad, that pastry was to _die for_ ,” she says to the man with the heavyset stomp when she has finally extracted herself from her bed, the beginnings of manufactured tears in her eyes and a pout on her face. It is a combination that she has practiced for long hours, and she hopes fervently that it pays off.

“Good morning to you too, Byleth,” replies Jeralt, utterly unaffected. “And wake up that lump of a sister of yours after you’re finished dressing, too, unless you’ve forgotten that our next job is—”

“—in the Kingdom, yes, and we need to leave _at the crack of dawn for it, yes_ ,” she grumbles irritably. Her primary gambit has failed, and she realises with disappointment that she must now resort to her less carefully-considered backup, so she prepares to hang her head and be moody for the rest of the morning until her father gives in.

He _hmphs_ at being interrupted, but nods in response with a look in his eye that could charitably be termed fondness. It’s really more of a _gleam of loving calculation_ , though, because Jeralt is actually considering the best way to get his daughter to stop sulking without parting with too much of his coin pouch. Experience reminds him that deluding himself into believing fanciful thoughts like that has never really worked, so he gives in with a last regretful farewell thought to his hard-earned gold and tells her that she can buy the fish-shaped pastry when they leave. Byleth’s crocodile tears dry up like a puddle in the sun and her pout turns into a wide grin.

“Thanks, dad, you’re the best!” she crows in triumph.

 _How typical,_ he thinks amusedly, shaking his head. _I wonder what you’d make of this cheeky glutton I accidentally raised, Sitri…_

The glutton in his thoughts has, by now, managed to dress and is currently prodding insistently at the bundle wrapped in the bed next to hers. It really is hard to tell that underneath the veritable mountain of blankets and furs a person sleeps, because not even a hair of them is visible and the only sign of life is the groaning emitted in time with Byleth’s pokes and prods.

“Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake _up, wakeup, wakeupwakeup_ —” Byleth is chanting manically, much to the audible annoyance of the lump being chanted at. _Maybe,_ Jeralt thinks with a stab of pity, _I should have waited until they were both up to tell her that she could have the—_

The door to the house slams open and interrupts his thought ( _and blessedly_ , he thinks, _Byleth’s chant_ ), and lets in one of his harried-looking soldiers. The man informs them in worried tones that there are a bunch of nobles in the village who claim to have been chased by bandits, and that they are seeking their band’s protection. He exchanges a surprised glance with his daughter, but they waste no time before each grabbing a weapon in tandem and heading out to meet the nobles who have somehow done the impossible and brought battle to the sleepy stones of Remire.

* * *

“And you couldn’t have led them to the Imperial outpost the same distance away?” Jeralt is asking once more, though Byleth cannot fathom why when it is clear these nobles don’t even know who they’re running _from_ , much less what they were running _to_.

“As we’ve explained before, going in that direction would have meant almost certain death because the bandits were headed in the same direction, and they were unquestionably faster than us,” the girl in red reiterates with a patience Byleth is surprised to find nobility possess. Then again, she considers, the girl and her companions do look to be the extra-refined type of noble — the kind that always try their hardest to be the paragons of society. The boy with the blue cape, too, is unfailingly polite and says _excuse me_ before every other word he utters, and the boy in yellow gives everyone around him roguish smiles and jokes around as if he has known them his whole life.

“Right, right,” sighs Jeralt, clearly not happy about having his draconian travel plans interrupted. Byleth, too, is just beginning to consider the implications of this wrench in the works of her pastry acquisition campaign when a soldier from their band reports that the bandits have reached the front walls of the village. Her father gives her a nod, says to the nobles, “Follow her,” and rides off on his steed to gather and position the rest of their band before she can even think of volunteering to do anything other than babysit a bunch of too-polite noble brats.

“You’d better not cost me my pastry,” she says darkly to the gathered three, who blink in varying degrees of confusion mixed with apprehension.

* * *

After all is said and done, the pastry is surprisingly far from Byleth’s mind.

It occupies the mental space somewhere between the nick on her sword and the way the bandits had acted as if the nobles had _personally_ insulted them, but all these weigh less on her mind than the performance of her noble charges in the skirmish. She thinks of how the boy in blue had split a bandit in half with his lance, or of how the yellow-clad boy displayed frankly stunning skill in archery and hit a shot at thirty paces straight into a man’s eye that even she would have been hard-pressed to make in the darkness of dawn; especially, however, of how the girl with the silver hair had parted two bandits with their heads in one fell swoop of a dented axe that, frankly, looked like it had seen much better days. Her father had mentioned somewhere in his grumbling an _Officer’s Academy_ that she had never heard of but that the nobles were all supposedly students of, and she thinks that this Academy must have some very talented teachers to instill such skill in people she would never have ordinarily thought of as well-acquainted with battle.

She is only just beginning to ponder the ramifications of an Academy that trains nobles in warfare that she, a mercenary of some renown, has never heard of. Nobody in her company has ever spoken of a place like this, even though these nobles look Important, and surely if Important nobles had access to a place like this Academy then _she_ of all people should have known because of how many gossipy nobles their mercenary band had contracted with. She likes this train of thought less and less, because it seems to expose what is clearly a gaping flaw in her knowledge of the world, but before she can delve too deeply into it the leader of the bandits has risen up with a mad roar and is rushing towards the girl in silver and red.

In her inattention, she has let the nobles drift too far from her; the boys are standing off to her left near a copse of trees chatting up their quartermaster, and the girl doesn’t seem to have been interested in this chat because she stands to the opposite side near a large, solitary tree that provides effectively no cover. The bandit leader the girl clearly thought dead is apparently only moderately injured with a shoulder wound, and it clearly doesn’t impede his movement any because he draws a long, wicked blade with great swiftness and charges at her in leaping strides. _I am too far away,_ Byleth thinks in a panic, _and Thoron won’t hit him in time before he runs her through._ Still, she tries, and runs towards them with her hand extended and crackling with the telltale sulfuric tang of Reason…

* * *

Dimitri looks back at the roar, and his eyes widen when he sees the bandit charging Edelgard, who is armed with only a dagger. He shouts in alarm and runs as fast as he can with his lance extended, but for all his prodigious strength he has never been _fast_ and even as he regrets this, he cannot help but notice the familiar shape of the dagger Edelgard wields…

* * *

Claude, too, balks at the roar and then winces again at Dimitri’s shout right next to his poor, abused eardrums, but he wastes no time in grabbing a bow and drawing an arrow. He may poke fun at the princess for being such a… _noble_ , really, but he actually likes the girl and isn’t about to let some crusty bandit finish her off. That would just be bad form for Claude von Riegan, and he abhors bad form more than he does anything else. The bow _twangs_ and the arrow flies true, and he hopes only that it hits in time to stop the madman’s momentum before he slices Edelgard in two…

* * *

Edelgard, meanwhile, is heavily cursing her inattention and lack of preparation. The rusty axe was the only weapon worth using that was preapproved for training exercises, and she really had not wanted to alert anyone at the monastery to the scheme she and Hubert had cooked up by requesting approval for better gear before embarking on the journey with her fellow house leaders. She regrets her choice of inconspicuousness over readiness, and if she is honest with herself, she regrets the entirety of this poorly thought-out plan, but she knows there is nothing for it and draws the dagger she does not remember receiving. She knows, too, that she cannot stomach the thought of her dream being trampled on in a fashion as insulting as this, so she prepares to reveal her hidden Crest, consequences be damned; and hopes fervently that the surprise is enough to overcome the enraged buffoon rushing her thoughtlessly.

A beat passes, and the bandit leaps closer. Edelgard readies her dagger and flares whatever pitiful excuse of magical talent she possesses, and feels the telltale burn in her veins of the Goddess’ Crest making its presence known.

Another beat, and the tree behind and above her rustles from the fury her Crest is sure to unleash on the unsuspecting fool.

Another beat, and the bandit is almost upon her, and she has only the time to register dimly in the back of her mind that her Crest does not manifest externally and shouldn’t be able to shake a tree she isn’t even touching…

…before a slab of stone the size of a large anvil smashes into the man from above and crushes him utterly into the ground, and at the same time a bolt of lightning and an arrow whoosh past where he had been standing moments before.

Many more beats pass unremarked, at the end of which a short, lithe form leaps nimbly from the branches of the tree above and lands on bare feet in front of her. The figure’s back is to Edelgard, but she can tell from the figure’s shape that it is a woman, who dusts her hands in a motion that gives away her satisfaction at her handiwork. The woman reaffirms her approval of the situation with a contented _humph_ , nods to herself, and turns around with a pleased smirk that makes Edelgard’s heart stutter in her chest.

“Who are you?” Edelgard manages to rasp out, mouth suddenly dry.

“Sothis,” says Sothis. “I’m terribly sorry we got off to such a _rocky_ start, but it’s really good to meet you!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi everyone! there's a criminal lack of human!Sothis stories here, so I thought I would contribute to existing literature by writing my own. it got a bit out of hand, though... hence this pseudo-golden-route fanfic that will go absolutely insanely off-the-rails after about half a dozen chapters, complete with a brand spanking new ship that is honestly very hard to write for someone who has always been a diehard edeleth shipper :)
> 
> this is also my first fic, so the quality may be a tad inconsistent (especially near the beginning), but I've got a good story outline fleshed out so it will definitely eventually be finished, and hopefully it can only get better :)


	2. In Cherished Halls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bernadetta survives another terrifying day in her new prison and gets pranked by a cat into divine providence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i try to write funny things but bernie makes them anxiety instead: the chapter.

It is the beginning of a new day at the Officer’s Academy, and Bernadetta is already tired of it.

She has been imprisoned behind the ancient walls and stained-glass windows of this place for nearly four months now. At present, she slinks behind one of the pillars in the practice grounds, far enough away from everyone else that all she can really hear is Dorothea’s tinkling laugh and Caspar’s always-exaggerated yells of exertion. Far enough away, too, so that she doesn’t have to hyper-fixate on where every one of her housemates is in relation to her, or on how they are looking at her, or on how they are talking about her, or on how they are just generally aware of her presence. Her terror now is less stark than it was when she was sent to this place—

_the crash of a broken window, wrists chafing against too-tight bindings, a woman’s voice assuring her that she would be safe now, no mother please i don’t want to go there please no_

—but it still occasionally creeps up into the corners of her vision and wears her down, and she needs a moment to relax in the comfort of her room already. Today, it starts off mild; the shadow cast behind a training dummy is perhaps a shade darker than she thinks it ought to be, the curve of Caspar’s smile as he hollers at Ferdinand appears a mite more sinister than she thinks it is meant to be, the flecks of rust on the practice weapons they are using today appear to be less brown and more of a colour she thinks her nightmares would want it to be, and oh Goddess she is going to die because she _thought_ she was done with weapons practice for the day but her house leader’s terrifying retainer is looking at her and smiling like he means to disabuse her of the very notion. Permanently.

No, he isn’t just smiling, he’s _smirking_ , and he’s walking towards her now with an assassin’s deadly purpose, and he is also holding one of his hands behind his back because _oh Bernie you stupid girl of course he’s not going to be obvious about it_ and before her mind has really had any time to fully consider the reality of her impending fate, he is before her and she barely has time to flinch before the hand behind his back moves in front of him and holds out a book in her direction.

_Ah,_ the remaining vestiges of her mind which still stubbornly hold out against the terror say, _he is going to cast me into the void with the spell in that book._

“You forgot your book in the classroom after yesterday’s… _incident_ , Bernadetta,” says Hubert.

“Um,” she responds automatically, because her brain is stuck replaying the way he moved from all the way over in Dorothea’s shadow to _right next to her_ in about the time it took her to blink, and does not register that the tome is her _Treatise On Tactics_ on loan from the library.

He seems find a particular sort of joy in her scatterbrained reply, because his smirk widens. Naturally, this sends Bernadetta’s ever-accelerating paranoia into overdrive, because clearly she has caused great offense by not being Noble to the Proper Standard with her response, and her inner voice (which by now has turned into more of an inner whimper) tells her that the penance for her sin must surely be paid with her life. She agrees, squeezes her eyes shut, manages to think up a final apology to the Goddess, and bows her head to wait for the inevitable end.

This does mean that she doesn’t see Hubert’s sinister smirk morph into confusion as he waits for her to finish saying what she surely meant to finish saying. She also doesn’t see the way Dorothea frowns at his back disapprovingly from where she is standing next to Petra overseeing the practice bouts, nor does she the exasperated realisation that eventually crosses Hubert’s face when he realises Bernadetta’s consciousness has probably taken the next few minutes off. He sighs, and sets down the book next to her feet.

Done with his civic duty for the day, Hubert turns in time to catch Ferdinand expertly part Caspar with his axe and his footing to decisively end the last bout of the morning. Ever the gracious winner, Ferdinand gives the other boy a hand up and offers some surprisingly well-considered advice that Caspar probably genuinely tries to listen to but ultimately discards, because how is _weapon flexibility and reach_ relevant when he can just be stronger and faster than the other person, and what on Fódlan do triangles have to do with fighting anyway? Ferdinand, who miraculously seems to sense that his guidance is lost on the boy who has absconded his conversational company to wake up a still-sleeping Linhardt instead, turns instead to Dorothea. He has just barely started bragging about his victory when he catches Hubert’s eye, who is still looking at him.

Hubert, who is also still standing next to Bernadetta with her head bowed and hands gripping themselves for dear life.

Now both Ferdinand and Dorothea are frowning disapprovingly at him. He sighs again, despairs the day his Lady decided she needed to destroy the Church from within instead of without, and returns to the shadows of the weapon racks before their frowns can make any progress into a reprimand.

* * *

Bernadetta wakes to the gentle hum of an angel’s lullaby. When she has worked up the courage to open her eyes and lift her head up again, she discovers that the lullaby is actually just Dorothea’s dulcet voice asking if she is okay and if Hubert hadn’t frightened her too much. She blinks, and then immediately berates herself for daring to think that Dorothea, as kind and wonderful as she is, could ever be _just_ anything. In-between her self-flagellation she manages to squeak and nod as reassuringly as the other girl hands her book to her, because even though she is sure Dorothea is an angel given human form, Bernadetta is still slightly on edge around her because the thought of Dorothea eviscerating her with her thunder and lightning when they were practice-sparring had worked itself into her brain like a particularly determined weasel a while ago, and refused to let go since.

Still, she makes the effort to dislodge the idea, because having someone like Dorothea care _even if she is surely only pretending_ is worth it for a girl who is as unlikeable and Unmarriageable as Bernie has always been, and also because she realises she is realistically in far greater danger of being eviscerated by Dorothea’s charm than any of her magic. The thought makes her shiver a bit, but thankfully by now a warm hand on her arm leads her gently out of the enclosed practice courtyard and into the Academy proper so she can pass it off as a result of the chill winds Garreg Mach is always home to.

Dorothea is the one leading everyone around today because Edelgard put her in charge of their training, right before she was due to leave with the other house leaders on some training exercise they seem to have come up with. Bernadetta shivers again as she remembers the shadows that surfaced in Prince Dimitri’s face when Edelgard was mentioning the presence of local bandits in the areas near the local village, and the cold, calculating gleam in Claude’s eyes as he considered his fellow leader’s words. Edelgard scares her even more than Hubert sometimes with her sheer intensity, but at least she is up front about it; the other two mask their depths behind friendly guises that really just make her want to lock herself in her room and throw away the key.

Dorothea must notice her quivering, because she gives the arm she is holding a soft squeeze — Bernadetta flushes slightly when she realises Dorothea hasn’t let go yet — and continues her discussion with Petra without missing a beat. This makes her slump in relief, a little; she isn’t entirely sure she has the energy to talk to anyone after her near-brush with Hubert-shaped death. She can still listen, though, and hears the woman lament the plight of Ingrid, whose father is apparently _still_ insisting on matching her with a suitor of his choosing, and then hears her glum tone quickly turn to frustration because “—the point of being born a high and mighty noble, with a Crest to boot, when she must _still_ live at the whims of those leches?!”

“I am thinking that the customs of Fódlan are having much strangeness… and it is appearing to help only the powerful and the elite,” says Petra, nodding sagely.

“As sad as it is,” she shoots a venomous glare at an oblivious Ferdinand who is happily spouting away at an increasingly irate Hubert, “you’re absolutely right about that. But say, surely Brigid is more open-minded about the whole thing than here, right? Edie said you’re a princess there, so surely you must know about these things.”

Bernadetta perks up here; growing up in the Empire meant there were always tales of Brigid’s ferocious warriors to be heard, but she has never heard or read much about Brigid the country. She’s always been interested in what the plants look like there… a nation of islands would probably have a much more diverse biome, and surely if it is as hot as they say the amount of insects would have made the carnivorous varieties so much more abundant!

Petra shakes her head in the negative. “No, Brigid is not having much sameness… no, _similarity_ , to Fódlan in how we marry. We do not have Crests and none except our spirits may guide us on who we choose, and even then they are guides only.”

“And please do not be calling me princess, you are making my cheeks blush!” she adds quickly, a hand momentarily covering her face.

“S-spirits? You mean like, ghosts?” Bernadetta squeaks out before Dorothea can respond, her curiosity momentarily overwhelming her reclusiveness.

Petra seems to consider this, then slowly shakes her head, as if not sure whether to disagree. “They are not… ghosts, and in truth they are not spirits as people in Fódlan know of, either.” She makes a noise of frustration, as if she cannot summon the words to give her thoughts form. “It is difficult to be explaining, because the tongue of Fódlan is not having the same words as Brigid for the mystical. I… I think the best way to be explaining it is saying that Fódlan has a Goddess, but Brigid has our spirits for every place that is sacred to us. There are spirits for all our islands, and for all our seas, and all our lands and forests and trees and homes. We are not worshipping them, but they are guiding us in our lives with their signs.”

Bernadetta processes this with slight trepidation; Dorothea seems to share in it because she gives off a nervous laugh and says in a voice lower than before, “That’s, uh, that’s really very fascinating, but you must be careful about where you say these things, Petra. The Church doesn’t take too kindly to those sorts of _alternative_ thoughts, after all. Although,” here she lowers her voice so much that Bernadetta and Petra lean in to hear, and says darkly, “I do wonder if we wouldn’t be better off with guiding spirits instead of a Goddess nobody can even name.”

* * *

Professor Hanneman lets the Black Eagles leave their last seminar early because the Archbishop has summoned him, so Bernadetta takes the opportunity to rush to the dining hall before the other houses get there and she has to take her meal late into the evening again in an effort to avoid all the people. It is, as she’d hoped, blessedly empty; although the lady serving the food this early in the afternoon is not the usual dour one in the evenings. As if hearing her thoughts, she blinks at Bernadetta and says kindly, “A new face? I thought we’d gotten used to seeing all of you already, but I suppose it’s hard to keep track with how many of you kids there are!”

“Ahaha, that — that must be it. Ahahaha!” she laughs tremulously and piles her plate with as much as she dares, scurrying away before the woman can think to interrogate her further. She finds a spot behind a pillar that hides her from view of most of the hall, and begins to eat savouring every bite; she may not get the chance to do so again for a while, so every ounce of flavour counts.

Bernadetta’s mind is cursed with not being able to remain idle (and many things besides), however, so she soon finds it wandering. Four months at the Officer’s Academy, and she has already made more friends than she’d ever had at home. Her plants had always kept her company in her room at home, of course, but they didn’t talk back and even if she did prefer that arrangement most days, she admitted privately to herself that it did get pretty lonely after a while. She tries hard not to think about descriptors other than lonely, because loneliness was infinitely preferable to being tied to a chair and left to — _nonono, Bernie, you’re not ruining this delicious crab risotto with those memories_ — other things that came with living at the Varley estate with her father. (She doesn’t quite manage to repress a full-bodied shudder at the thought of him, though.)

Once she is done with her meal, she deftly dodges the gaze of the serving lady to return her cutlery, snags a few pieces of dried meat (“F-for later! I-I might get peckish in the evening!”), and dares to venture out into the open. The Monastery feels much more comforting to roam when all the other houses are in class, and since by her estimate she has a good half hour left before they finish, she takes the chance to roam the area. The fishing lake that supplied the crabs for her meal is unusually still, today — normally, there would be scampering fish visible closer to the surface and ripples all over, but it seems as if they are in hiding from something today, as if they have sensed the coming of a great calamity and decided to pretend that they do not exist in hopes of being passed over by it.

She wonders momentarily what calamity they are scared of and if she should be, too.

Her wandering feet take her in the direction of the greenhouse, next; she risks a peek inside but nearly jumps out of her skin when sees that the keeper who tends to the plants is there. She has been frightened witless of her after the brutal tongue-lashing the woman had given Dedue yesterday for a reason she did not catch, and opts to not cross her for at least the next few decades. She vows to check on her beloved carnivorous blooms later at night, instead, and heads instead in the direction of the monastery’s gates.

Bernadetta’s purpose here is not, as any reasonable observer might assume, to head to the markets that adorn the area around the monastery’s entrance. She has not braved the throngs of people in this market for a long while; Anna had, at some point, used whatever unearthly entrepreneurial magic she possessed to sniff out that she was losing on a valuable customer, so now she takes requests from and sends supplies straight to Bernadetta’s door. It is by far Bernadetta's preferred arrangement, and she has thanked Anna profusely for making it by buying a frankly ridiculous amount of sewing material that she doesn’t quite know what to do with. And it is because of this arrangement that she skips straight past the market and climbs up the stairs to a firmament next to the opulent doors of the entrance hall, and alights on what she snagged the dried meat for.

Dotting the white stone of the place are all size, manner, and shape of the most _adorable_ cats, who somehow _all_ sense her burden of dried meats instantly and swarm around her feet. There are fluffy calicoes, and playful tabbies, and a couple of inky-black kittens who peer at her sweetly, and they all join in a cacophony of purrs and headbutts and meows to pester her into feeding them. She manages to sit down and bursts into reflexive giggles when they circle her, tickling her with their fur and whiskers, and begins to divvy up their snack for the day in the fairest manner she can think of.

The calicoes have thick coats but weigh surprisingly little and are shy around strangers, she has seen, so a stab of empathy makes her feed them, first. The four tabbies are next, she pries their soft paws batting at her skirt off and sets aside a portion for them to gorge on. Most of her attention, though, is reserved by the two pairs of mewling green-eyed kittens, and it is on them that she heaps the most of her attention, making sure they eat their fair share and that the other cats don’t snatch their meals away. She can’t help it, she supposes; the only member of her family that she’s ever loved liked to spend his time feeding the various underfed strays that made the dry lands of Varley their home, and she is not willing to let his legacy die with him.

She clearly isn’t as experienced as her dearly departed uncle was, though, because before she knows it one of the calicoes has finished with her meal and comes up behind where she is sitting to bat softly at a piece of paper sticking out one of her pockets. She tries to reach around and shoo it off her, but the cat is recently fed and insistent, and snags a claw on the paper and lifts it clean out.

The paper on which she’d written her most recent manuscript for her romantic and _steamy_ novel-in-progress.

The paper which the cat has grabbed in its mouth and is attempting to tear apart.

The cat which does not react kindly to her attempt to snatch her writing back, and takes off running in the direction of the gates.

Oh _no_.

She abandons all thought of equitable division of food and chases as fast as she can after the interloper; she ducks and weaves past stalls and shopkeepers, does not even register the shouts of passersby who are alarmed by the speed of her sprint — all she knows is that her veins are burning with a feeling she has only ever felt once before, that she is probably running faster than she has ever run in her life, and that she will _die_ if anyone ever happens upon that page. But she _is_ running faster than she has ever run in her life, and is even managing to somehow gain on the dashing cat; it is only an arm’s length away now and — aha! — she has retrieved her wet, torn up page from the jaws of a speed demon and her dignity from the jaws of life-ending humiliation.

Only to give lie to her last thought, because she realises she is still sprinting straight through the open gates, and into a group that has just entered through them, and before she can properly even begin to dread her realisation that this is probably the group with which Edelgard is returning and she is running _far_ too fast to stop herself from slamming straight into them, she has collided into something soft and squishy that wraps itself around her and she sees only a flash of blue before the wind is knocked clean out of her lungs and her vision goes momentarily dark and she is being spun around and all she can do is hold on for dear life.

Eventually, the world rights itself, and she looks up to see that the soft-and-squishy-things that happened to wrap around her were the arms of the Goddess herself. She blinks, in a daze, her mind simultaneously grinding shut at the revelation, but working furiously to commit the concerned cerulean gaze of the blue-haired vision holding her into eternal memory.

As has often been the case, though, the strain soon proves too much for Bernadetta’s poor, overstimulated mind, and the last thing she remembers before she fades into sweet oblivion is a green-haired woman standing somewhere behind her divine cushion, saying, “Hey, can’t you see where you’re going?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bernadetta/byleth is (probably) not the ship but fuck me, i mean, who wouldn't crush on byleth at least a little? 
> 
> bernadetta will also be at least somewhat central to this story - in the hopes of providing her with some much needed character exploration and development that she does not really get in canon, she will take what is likely to be a leading side character role. by and large though, this story will still be sothis-and-byleth-centric, with large heaping tablespoons of edelgard and jeralt, but that doesn't mean i can't have fun with all these other wonderful characters and their... interesting POVs :)


	3. Time's Flow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seteth reflects on his relationship with Rhea, and their unexpected visitors arrive.

Rhea has been alight with suppressed excitement for the past six hours, and Seteth is beginning to consider a resignation from his position.

Six hours ago, of course, is when a harried messenger bird from the Knights arrived; it bore the news of the safety of the House Leaders, which has been a balm to the storm of his agitated thoughts — Seteth is certain the whole ordeal has given him a few more grey hairs to add to his ever-growing collection. But the messenger bird also carried with it news of the ones who rescued the errant Lords and Lady, and ever since Rhea has come across the words _Captain_ _Jeralt the Blade-Breaker_ scribbled down in Alois’ messy hand, she has been bouncing off the walls of the Cathedral like Flayn when she has eaten too much of the hard-candy the merchants from outside the Monastery bring.

He knows Rhea is his elder, but the joys of fatherhood have long wizened him beyond his years, and given also her… erratic behaviour, of late, he sometimes thinks that he would sooner trust his daughter with the governance of the monastery than Rhea.

Still, despite his misgivings, and elder or not, he knows Rhea needs his support — he will never forget the state of near _squalor_ he found the woman in, almost fifteen years ago; she was despondent and wretched and _lonely_ , and while he privately thinks her currently much-improved health suggests an alarming amount of codependency on himself and Flayn, he cannot begrudge her the comfort.

Truthfully, he finds he cannot begrudge her much of anything, this last survivor-turned-saviour of their long dead and long forgotten family.

As if somehow sensing the tone of his thoughts, the woman in question gives him a tremulous smile from where she stands next to him. He almost sighs reflexively in response, because seeing her excitement reminds him of the true reason behind his worry; it is _not_ the eagerness of a woman who is ostensibly overjoyed by the news of a dear old friend’s survival. It is not even that she has been so rarely this effusively happy that he worries she will expend her quota for a good mood too quickly and be dour ever after.

(No, he couldn’t believe that — after all, when he’d learned that their brothers yet lived in slumber, he had not hesitated before excusing himself and choosing a quiet corner of the Monastery to weep in relieved joy. He does not think that it caused him to not feel relief later in his life, such as when Annette visits the kitchens and leaves without a raging inferno in tow.)

No, it is that when he had begun his return journey to the Monastery fifteen years ago, with a newly awakened Flayn in tow, he had counted eagerly the days before he could reunite with the last of his still-awake family. It is that on his way, he had met villagers and noblefolk alike, and from them learned much; even now, he remembers whispers of _the_ _Archbishop is seldom seen away from her chambers_ mixed with murmurs of _rumours say that at night she communes with the spirits of the dead_ , and how they had all painted Flayn’s face with apprehension.

(What expression he had on his own face upon hearing these stories, he could not have said, only that it must surely have exceeded his daughter’s in gravity. Flayn was, for better or worse, an optimist like her dearly beloved mother had always been.)

It is that he had arrived at an Academy in disarray with its gloried and storied Archbishop nowhere to be found, and his uneasiness had begun giving way to dread.

It is that his dread had given way to equal parts terror and fury when he had discovered her in her room, cradling the Sword of the Creator, rocking back and forth amidst the cooling corpses of three young women littered about like ragdolls. It is that he had stared with fraught horror at the dying remnants of a Progenesis Circle humming quietly about her, as she had whispered bitterly, “Failures, all, mother… but I know we will be reunited, one day.”

The true reason for his worry is that she had smiled tremulously then, too, as she smiles now.

(He loves her, but he does not trust her. He has caught Flayn sometimes, too, staring at the woman mournfully from afar, and knows his daughter likely feels much the same.)

With a great effort, he banishes the tide of nostalgia and unease to the back of his mind, and returns to surveying the Monastery from the balcony of the Entrance Hall — they stand at a rarely used vantage point, and a heavy coat of dust coats the concrete rails. He finds this odd; with this marvelous view, it is a small wonder the students which normally scurry like ants in search of the best spots for their dalliances and plots would overlook such a perfect retreat.

Indeed, from where he stands with Rhea, he can see the markets scattered about the entrance courtyard, the gates, and the green lands beyond — all around, there are students mingling with merchants, haggling and being haggled with. In one corner, a young lady with a fashionable cap is explaining the appeal of spiced apples to a magenta-haired girl, who takes a bite of one in fascination. In another, an ash-haired boy is calmly but firmly negotiating the trade of thick-rimmed tomes with a particularly obstinate vendor, who only seems to relent after the tall blonde behind the boy cracks her knuckles threateningly. (He frowns, and makes a mental note to remind the typically solemn Ingrid that the knightly virtues she usually aspires to do not normally involve cowing pigheaded booksellers with threats of bodily harm, however tempting it may be.)

In all, the scene he sees before him is only a small taste of the liveliness of Garreg Mach — but its flavour is warm, hearty, and comforting, hinting only of better things further inside.

His musings are interrupted by an uncharacteristic gasp from Rhea, who seems to have stiffened next to him. He sees that her knuckles are gripping the weathered stone of the railings so tightly he fears the stone may give way, and as he blinks in alarm and turns to her to follow her gaze and discover what has rattled her so, he sees the return of the rescue party of Knights, accompanied by a truly sizeable company of mercenaries. He has never seen the man before, but Jeralt the Blade-Breaker is as truly unmistakable as Alois has always claimed; the broad-shouldered mercenary commands the attention of those he passes by as surely as a flame to moths. Beside him trail two young women, one clad in grey with hair the colour of the deep sea, and the other—

He stares numbly in shock. The other woman is elbowing her companion, and getting her hair ruffled in retaliation — hair that is a very particular shade of green. The same shade he sees in the reflection of his sword every day, or the shade that he helps his daughter tie into her thickly looped braids of choice, or the shade that the very woman standing next to him has.

The colours of the Goddess swish around the young lady’s face, and in Seteth’s shock he remains so utterly fixed on the hair that he barely registers when the woman and her companions are close enough for their features to be distinguished. But eventually he does, and his jaw drops open.

He feels more than he hears the low, wounded sound Rhea makes next to him, and he wonders if he has stepped into a particularly vivid fever dream as the visage of his dead, departed mother blinks in bewilderment as a purple blur crashes into her blue-haired compatriot.

* * *

Rhea has not stopped shaking since Jeralt’s Mercenaries made their entrance into Garreg Mach.

Presently, she is in some sort of a fugue state; Seteth has, to his own surprise, somehow managed to get them both to her chambers above the Monastery’s Cathedral without being noticed. He remembers the way Rhea had bonelessly collapsed against him as soon as he dragged her out of the sight of their visitors; he thinks one of them may have been spotted, but he was too preoccupied with what he’d seen to really care. Their mother, the _progenitor_ , is not only alive, but looks like she is currently barely out of her teens, and has just stepped into their home gazing around as if she has never seen such a fascinating place in her life.

Seteth does not think he has ever empathised with Rhea as much as he does in that moment, and he lets her know as much.

She doesn’t reply to his remark, but it seems it has its intended effect of lifting her out of whatever fog she was in, because her previously unfocused eyes rapidly regain their sheen and turn to him in a state of bewildered delight. He frowns in return, and asks in a tone sharper than he intends, “You did not know of this? Despite whatever monstrous experiments you have wrought over the years I have not been here to stay your hand?”

He winces internally as she opens her mouth to reply, expecting a guilt-inducing rejoinder about the suffering she has endured, but she instead just says, “She looked me in the eye, just then, and not a flash of recognition crossed her gaze... I’ve,” she falters, the confusion in her tone giving way to trepidation, “never planned or accounted for such a thing. You know we’ve tried to bring her back, before, _you were there_ , but my rituals should not have robbed her of any of her memory, especially not memory she had before she—” Rhea’s voice cracks in a way Seteth has not heard since they were children, “—went to sleep.”

His frown deepens as he considers this, but he is not as well versed in the magics of their kind as Rhea always was; she’d always been the one begging their mother for more scraps of knowledge after every lesson. Their mother would always provide with a fond smile, too, he remembers; she would chuckle, tap Rhea on the nose, and murmur, _“Always impatient, aren’t you, little dragon,”_ as she hoisted her daughter up onto her shoulder. He remembers, because he would pout often that he wasn’t the one being picked up, so she would grab him, too, sometimes, if one of their brothers hadn’t already claimed a spot on her other shoulder.

Rhea startles him out of his reverie by leaning forward and putting her head into her hands, and mumbling around them, “I’ve got her back, but she does not remember, so what do I say to her now?”

He swallows around a dry tongue, puts a commiserating hand on her shoulder, and says, “Whatever it is, I suspect it will go over better if we don’t keep her waiting.”

She shudders, and agrees. Sothis had never been known for her patience.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short and sweet, this one! probably the shortest chapter that'll ever be in this story - and I know it's grating to not have the plot actually advance, but I promise the character setup for both Seteth and Rhea was important to do now for thematic reasons that may (or may not) become apparent in later chapters.


	4. Coloured Glass

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The visitors partake of the Monastery's joys, and Sothis accidentally bullies their host.

Byleth first thought is to hope that the girl who crashed into her didn’t smoosh the pastry in her front pouch.

An anxious beat and a sigh of relief after checking said pouch later, her second thought is to wonder what made the purple-haired speed demon faint.

She really hopes it isn’t the lingering scent of battle that permeates her armor.

After giving the matter a good deal of thought, she decides to present her question to the expert beside her, who shrugs and tells her that she smells fine. Sothis has said that before, though, one upon a time, and she’d spent that afternoon smelling like pondwater and fish guts thanks to a particularly plentiful spear-fishing lake. So Byleth elects to take her sister’s claim with a massive amount of salt, and attempts to discreetly sniff her armpits.

A cuff on the head from Jeralt and a _you’re in public, kid,_ later, she decides to abandon that train of thought and instead checks on the dead weight in her arms, who does not seem inclined to wake up anytime soon. She wonders why nobody other than Sothis seems to really care that a girl shot out of the gates of this strange place like an arrow and collapsed into her, but when even Sothis can’t explain the nonchalance of their companions, Byleth chalks it up to a strange welcoming tradition that she hasn’t been told of and drapes the girl over her shoulder like a somewhat lightweight sack of fish.

(Later, when they have been sufficiently fed after their journey, Edelgard approaches her and offers solemnly to take the girl, who she says is called Bernadetta, back to her room. She does not seem to have been told of the welcoming tradition that Bernadetta greeted Byleth with, either, but promises that she will inquire further into the matter.)

Her sleepy attacker secured, Byleth turns to survey her surroundings with a keen eye. There is quite the hubbub around them; a bustling market has sprung up around the entrance of the monastery, and, as Alois explains it, sells nearly anything the many dozens of denizens and the many hundreds of visitors of the monastery could ever want. This saves everyone a trip down the Oghma Mountains and gives the villagers of Remire some much-needed peace from the throngs of rowdy tourists and rowdier students, so it seems to be a mutually beneficial arrangement.

Beyond the merchant stalls is a giant entrance hall, with an ostentatious balcony looming above it. Byleth thinks, for a fleeting instant, that she sees a flash of green at the balcony’s shadowed entrance — but dismisses it as a trick of the light when nothing reveals itself to her stare. The entrance hall itself is grand and spacious; an endless red carpet begins at the doorway and seems to stretch on forever, and the curtains are draped with finery in stark, royal grey colours, contrasting against the faintly coloured glass underneath. A helmeted knight with a buoyant voice stands next to one such window near the entrance, and cheerfully informs her that he has nothing to report. She nods firmly to acknowledge his service, which serves to make him quaver with some sort of odd excitement.

Eventually, they pass through the entrance hall, at the end of which Alois stops, turns, and asks Jeralt if his company would like some food. Jeralt’s company loudly agrees before Jeralt himself can even begin to open his mouth, which makes him roll his eyes and Alois twirl his moustache with a “Hahaha, same old captain!”, so they exit the grand hall towards the left.

The path leads them to another hall that is smaller, but no less grand; it is stacked full of long tables and scores of chairs arranged across them. This seems to be the dining area, and they are currently serving lunch; even Sothis, who usually wastes no time in expressing her disdain for seafood, salivates at the sight of the dozens of steamed and sautéed crabs and other surrounding dishes arranged at the head of the hall. Byleth herself fares no better; at present, she is busy locking the prone form of Bernadetta across her back via liberal application of her cloak and some intricately constructed knots, upon completion of which she makes a mad dash for the nearest platter and begins gorging herself like she hasn’t eaten in weeks.

“Feels like I haven’t eaten in _weeks_!” Byleth says out loud to that same effect much later, when she has wolfed down enough food to be able to actually talk (and not with her mouth full, which she knows Jeralt will scold her for). Across from her, Sothis nods distractedly in reply, and Jeralt pretends to be affronted and clutches his coin purse in mock indignation (“You really _don’t_ feed me enough, Dad. I’m a growing girl!”).

Byleth ignores her father’s offended protests and grins instead at her sister’s distraction; while she’d never thought she would ever think it of her always-holier-than-thou sibling, Byleth _massively_ enjoys the furtive looks being exchanged across the dining table that are the source of Sothis’ current inattention.

Sothis, her sibling, who teased her once for _hours_ because a pink-haired noble boy rejected Byleth’s gift of painstakingly picked out pink carnations. Her sister, who sniffs with disdain at the tawdry variety of romance Byleth prefers to read. Her blood (not truly, Byleth knows, because they both agree that they look nothing alike and Jeralt is always rather evasive when they ask, but they might as well be for how similarly they act), who is currently sneaking surreptitious glances in the direction of the white-haired girl two spaces across from her.

“Cute,” snickers Byleth, and receives a kick in the shin for her trouble.

* * *

As reluctant as Sothis seems to be to bid their noble companions adieu, Jeralt eventually still manages to persuade her into accompanying him to the cathedral of this monastery, where the woman who apparently rules over this place has summoned them. Byleth is in no hurry to abandon her father either (who looks more worried the closer they get to the cathedral), so she deputes the handling of the mercenary company to their quartermaster, Jahar, and tells him to please be very careful with her fishing supplies, and that if he is not she will string him up and use _him_ as fishbait instead.

To his credit, the nearly-seven-foot-tall grizzled old warrior does not even flinch at the woman barely three fourths his height and one fourth his age threatening him with evisceration; he simply salutes her with sobriety befitting the veteran that he is, and begins to wrangle their rowdy company into the Knights’ Quarters Alois is kindly directing them all to.

By now, Edelgard has also kindly relieved Byleth of the sleepy weight on her shoulders, so she rolls them in preparation and proceeds to march in lock-step with her father and sister, and pats the man gently on the back in sympathy as he darkly mutters things about _that witch_ that Byleth is not entirely sure the sounds of which she likes. She exchanges a concerned glance with Sothis, and in the way twins are known to do, achieves a hidden consensus with her sister and proceed to seamlessly swap places with her.

Byleth now leads the way, with a brief snap-crackle-hiss of energy being the only indication that she is now fully prepared to let loose a stream of eldritch power at a possibly sorcerous assailant. Sothis, conversely, now holds their uncharacteristically reticent father’s arm in an attempt at comfort, and simultaneously looks about at anything and everything large enough to pick up and throw at whatever has the man so worried. Before they know it, they have arrived at their intended destination—

—and Byleth feels that she has to pause a moment to stare in awe.

Gentle streams of light rain in from the massive coloured-glass pane at the front, and the warm late morning sun gives the whole place a gently burnished quality. Long rows of pews are the main decoration for the gargantuan structure; it is easy to imagine the throngs that come to pay their respects to their Goddess sitting here, swaying shoulder to shoulder in symphony of exalting song.

At present, however, there is not a soul filling the seats, and the echoes of song that may once have filled the air of this place have long since faded. Indeed, the only sign of life in this silent edifice is the tall, green-haired woman clad in gossamer white and halcyon sunbeams standing at the far end of the cathedral. She is accompanied by another green-haired man of similar stature; his long green hair and neatly trimmed goatee hints at the same resplendent air that surrounds the woman, too, but he is clad instead in dark uniform — as if to make her appear even brighter in contrast.

As she approaches with her family in tow, Byleth can just barely make out the small, hesitant smile on the face of the woman, framed by soul-crushingly sad eyes that seem to gaze through her. She almost relaxes her defensive bearing, faced with those soulful orbs; before she realises that the sadness in the woman’s eyes seems to conceal a hidden depth.

Byleth knows this depth, and she knows the darkness it conceals intimately; long ago, it is all she could find in mirrors. Her father helped her see beyond it, and Sothis dragged it out of her utterly, but she dares not forget it — and in the face of the darkness this woman hides that has frightened the strongest man she has ever known, she knows her caution is warranted.

The woman in question seems to sense the tense atmosphere that clouds the approaching three, though, so she clasps her hands before herself and bows her head in deference even when they are still a fair distance away.

She does not look up even when Byleth, Jeralt, and Sothis have all gathered barely five paces away from her. Her green-haired companion seems to have no such compunctions; he politely introduces himself as Seteth, and the woman to his side as Lady Rhea.

“Thank you for your patience, Jeralt,” he adds, at which Jeralt only rumbles uncertainly in acknowledgement.

Many beats of silence pass, and Seteth starts rubbing his goatee in what seems to be consternation. He looks like he is wondering whether he should ask his companion to raise her head.

Byleth scratches her chin, too, and wonders if she has been misreading her father's shifty body language and mumbling this whole time; maybe he was afraid not of bodily harm but of severe awkwardness. She doesn’t blame him if that is the case; with the way she can see Sothis shifting uneasily at Jeralt’s side from the corner of her eye, she is likely not alone in that belief, either.

“She’s not usually this shy,” volunteers the black-clad man eventually, after they have all endured enough moments of unbearably silent eye contact with each other.

The source of their discomfort appears to finally snap herself out of her trance at this, and swivels her head rapidly between the three gathered before her. Or at least she attempts to, Byleth imagines, because when the woman is about to look in Sothis’ direction her head snaps back so fast it seems a wonder she hasn’t given herself whiplash. The momentum of her sudden turn makes green eyes lock squarely onto Byleth's blue.

Byleth blinks back awkwardly, defensiveness entirely forgotten, and wonders how old her pastry must have been for her to have conjured such a vivid fever dream.

“Greetings, Jeralt,” says Lady Rhea, finally. Her tone is so mild and unaffected Byleth wonders if she imagined the past five minutes. “It has been a long time. I wonder… was it the will of the Goddess to grant us another chance meeting like this?”

“Forgive my silence these past years,” replies Jeralt in a strained voice. “Much has happened since we last spoke.”

“So I see,” she says, still staring into Byleth’s eyes. “The miracle of fatherhood has blessed you, it seems. This is your child, is it not?”

“Children, actually,” he corrects, at which Byleth catches a well-concealed flinch from Lady Rhea. “Born many years after I left this place,” he adds, in the same tone he uses when he tries to convince Byleth that he hasn’t had more than two tankards at the tavern.

“I see,” repeats Lady Rhea.

“Yes, I wish I could introduce you to their mother,” he rambles on. “I’m afraid we lost her to illness many moons ago.”

Lady Rhea seems genuinely saddened by this, if the downturn of her eyes is any indication. “My condolences,” she says somberly. “As for you, I have heard of your valiant efforts from Alois. What is your name?”

Given that she has been looking at Byleth even when she was addressing Jeralt, it takes Byleth a few moments to decide who the question is addressed to.

“Byleth,” says Byleth, when she decides to answer regardless.

“Sothis,” says Sothis in the next beat, who has apparently decided much the same.

The wince Lady Rhea gives is far less concealed this time; she even breaks eye contact with Byleth to stare at some point above Jeralt’s right shoulder. It is as if she instinctively went to look at Sothis, but stopped herself for a reason Byleth cannot fathom. Whatever reason it is must annoy her sister greatly, though, because she steps forward with a hand on her hip and says, “What’s with all the flinching? I know I crushed that one bandit’s head with a rock and you probably heard about it, but surely that wouldn’t _scare_ you, would it?” She walks forward a step. “And don’t you know how incredibly rude it is to not make eye contact with _all_ of your guests?” Another few steps; Lady Rhea stumbles back, and Byleth exchanges an incredulous glance with Jeralt at the woman’s sudden meekness. “I would expect more decorum from the leader of an entire country’s religion, you know!”

“Y-yes,” squeaks Lady Rhea, who, by the time Sothis finishes with her rant is hunched down and quaking as if she is about to cry.

The annoyance on Sothis’ face fades quickly to give way to growing horror when she realises the effect of her words. She turns helplessly to Byleth and Jeralt, as if to say “ _I didn’t mean to do that!”_ with wide eyes, which is an expression Byleth has seen time and again on her sister’s face when she has gone too far with her castigation.

Byleth replies with a nonverbal shrug that says, “ _This is what you get for being a bully_.” Jeralt, however, seems to still be too shocked by this turn of events to give his customary Disappointed Father head shake.

“Nonono, I mean, you’re obviously a very nice lady,” Sothis tries, backtracking in desperation. “I was just tired and irritable; really, it’s been quite the long day, and I hope you don’t take my words to heart! B-but it’s okay if you wish to, I mean, you are naturally your own master, and…” she trails off when she realises her words aren’t helping Lady Rhea, who has now progressed to sniffling and even has a tear trailing down her cheek. Sothis turns to Seteth with pleading eyes, next, but he seems to be more taken aback than any of them and can only shake his head and stare at Lady Rhea helplessly in response.

Byleth steps forward when Sothis is left wringing her hands in obvious discomfort, at a loss for what to do, and hisses, “ _Hug her or something, idiot,_ ” as quietly as she can into her sister’s ear. Sothis perks up noticeably at this, and stammers at the woman in front of her, “I-I propose a moment of repose! It’s clear that we may have started off on the wrong foot, so why don’t we have a nice hug to clear the air between us?”

Lady Rhea abruptly stops sniffling, and looks up at Sothis with wide, shiny eyes. She looks like an adorable angelfish Byleth caught once, as she tilts her head and repeats in tones of what might be either confusion or wonderment, “Hug?”

Sothis holds her arms out tentatively in invitation.

There is a beat of silence that seems to hang on Lady Rhea’s reply.

Then Lady Rhea rushes into the woman’s waiting embrace, eliciting a muffled _oof_ from Sothis, and all evidence of her tears and quailing vanish as she sinks in contentment into Sothis’ arms, which she has to nearly kneel to fit into.

Sothis pats the woman on her head awkwardly.

“Thank you, Mother,” sighs Lady Rhea happily into her shoulder.

There is another beat of silence that rings much louder than the last.

“ _What,_ ” says a voice from a doorway to the right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> after agonising for a long couple of minutes about whether I made Sothis too mean at the end there, I remembered her entire schtick in canon is basically bullying byleth so this is actually totally in-character for her. 
> 
> the canon divergence train has also officially left the station!


	5. Codetta

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A tale is told.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _codetta_ (n.): _Italian, translates to ‘little tail’._

Flayn has always had a lot of trouble understanding Rhea.

She was not born alongside the older woman, for one; the generation that Rhea belongs to commanded a vast wealth of knowledge forever lost to the whimsies of time, and possessing the arcana of unreachable stars certainly elevated them beyond reach. Still, Flayn could try to bridge the gap if she cared to, and neither Rhea nor her father will truly oppose her learning these secrets if she ever asks.

And she is Nabatean, too, so she has the time to learn, and learn well — for all that she is mistaken for a young, overeager child, she has been untouched by the attrition of time since before the first human king was turned to ash.

Judging by how her father has hovered over her the whole while, she is increasingly certain she may outlast the dust of the last human king, too.

That thought never fails to make her grimace, and it always brings her to the true reason she thinks Rhea will be forever beyond her ken. It is not that Flayn is too ignorant, or too young, or too easily goaded into brashness and blind trust. 

No, it is that Flayn has never truly known how it must be to unfurl her wings and then be stripped of them utterly. She has long struggled for the former, endlessly yearning to step outside the patronus of her father’s watchful eye; she does it despite knowing he thinks it obstinate that she refuses to consider that he seeks only to protect her from the latter.

It is a tired discussion, especially for ones as long-lived as they; Flayn pushes, Seteth resists, the world spins — and Rhea remains outside Flayn’s grasp because they continue to have nothing in common.

This, at least, is how Flayn used to think.

She is realising now that she will probably never be as wrong about someone ever again — for despite all that her father has managed to shield her from, the piercing pain of losing her mother slipped past his defenses, and hers, and wounded her to her core.

Flayn is intimately acquainted with that particular form of loss. It has been her companion for centuries of slumber, and it did not leave her when she awakened — she still feels it in every glance of a mirror and every glimpse of the sea. She thinks of her mother every time she casts her line — of the tinkling _plink_ of a lure dipping into water and an accompanying hum of excitement. Every time her hook snags on a fish, she remembers her mother’s satisfied chuckle; every time she fails to reel in her catch fast enough, she remembers an exaggerated groan of disappointment. But most of all, she remembers best the shining face of the woman who raised her when she grabs her bucket of fish at the end of a productive day, and the phantom touch of her hair being ruffled in the light of a setting sun can warm her even on the coldest of days.

Her father tries his best, of course. He is not his wife, so he cannot slip so easily into the role; but he faces the challenge with all the aplomb and grace he can muster regardless. They fish together; he hums, he laughs, he groans, he pats her head. And sometimes at sunset the orange-red glare of failing light reflects _just so_ off his eyes, like it had with her mother all those centuries ago, and despite the void in their hearts she knows that they will be alright.

Flayn thinks of this void, but only now does she realise that it is behind Rhea’s eyes, too.

(She has always been able to see it, in truth; it is only that now she recognises it for what it is, and what it has always been.)

Flayn thinks of how Rhea did not have another parent to rely on when she lost nearly everything she knew, and thinks of the depths of anguish the oldest survivor of their kind must have endured. She sees the well-disguised but still-visible pain in Rhea’s eyes — and she sees how it dulls when Rhea looks at Sothis as if there exists nothing more precious, how Rhea trembles with suppressed excitement when Sothis speaks, and how, sometimes, Rhea blinks rapidly out of the blue as if attempting to escape a dream. Flayn sees, and thinks:

_Oh._

This realisation, of course, is brought on while Rhea is telling her tale to a disbelieving audience in the side chamber of the Monastery’s audience chamber. Seteth, ever the tactful one, had seized on the opportunity presented by Flayn’s arrival to the scene with a suggestion to continue their impending discussion elsewhere, citing the need for privacy so they could talk freely.

What followed had quite possibly been the most awkward walk of Flayn’s life.

Her natural charm and vivaciousness had failed her because she was still processing the sheer bizarreness of Rhea’s words; at least she hadn’t been the only one who’d felt that way, because the green-haired young woman who was apparently at the forefront of the entire scenario had also made increasingly despairing attempts at filling the silence and eventually had to be shushed by her blue-haired sister (who, despite her odd attire, seems to Flayn the more sensible of the two siblings). Eventually, and to everyone’s visible relief, they had all reached the audience chamber, whereupon Rhea had sequestered them all into her office and solemnly offered the story of her life by way of explanation.

Rhea’s story is one of loss, and attempted resurrection, and failures aplenty. It begins with the death of a dragon revered as a Goddess, and the slaughter of the Goddess’ children — then by turns the tale tumbles; through wars that create an empire, through deaths that shatter a civilisation, through propagandas that establish an era of blissful ignorance. It weaves into cohesion the lines that connect all the conflicting legends taught to the masses, and throws into the cold light of truth the atrocities of battle and of hatred. It entwines seemingly disparate ideas; the establishment of the Church of Seiros as the foundation of human ignorance and the plans to resurrect a fallen star turn out to be fruits of the same tree. It is a much-changed account of history; of those gathered who it concerns greatly, only Flayn’s father seems to have known some of this truth of things, and even he boggles at some of the finer details of Rhea’s plots and plans.

(It appears that the more vaunted magics of their kind require a hardy stomach for blood and gore. Flayn is rather glad, in retrospect, that she has never been much interested in the arcane from beyond the sky.)

Towards the end of Rhea’s story, however, she turns away from battles, wars, and plots, and begins to speak instead of people. She speaks of a mercenary who became a Knight, who saved her and who she in turn gave her blood to save. She speaks of people at Garreg Mach Monastery; her knights, her monks, and her scholars, who shaped this mercenary into a man respected and spoken of in hushed awe. But most of all, Rhea speaks of a woman named Sitri.

(The name makes Jeralt flinch and Byleth and Sothis perk up in unabashed curiosity.)

Rhea speaks of the woman named Sitri in adoring tones; she speaks of a gifted mage, a skilled healer, and a brilliantly cheerful soul. She speaks of a woman beloved by many in life, and mourned by many in death.

She speaks of her as Sitri, the last of Rhea’s children — children who were all created for the sole purpose of being vehicles for the heart and soul of a dead Goddess.

None of Rhea’s other children ever grew beyond the shadow of the Archbishop’s purpose which breathed life into them; indeed, none of them even succeeded at their intended purpose — but Sitri, ethereally radiant from the day she was made, had given Rhea a hope that none of the others ever had. From the day she was made, Sitri displayed an intellect beyond even her elders and a charisma beyond even her creator; she excelled in her studies and became a fount of knowledge for both the students at the Officer’s Academy and to all those who travelled to seek the guidance of the Church, she regularly trounced the Knights of Seiros in spars and earned their loyalty, and she took particular joy in alternately flummoxing and delighting the learned mages of the Monastery with her effortless displays of magical prowess.

The Crest Stone of Flames had resonated with Sitri’s blood in a way that it never had with any other, and her talent at making things grow was beyond even that of the Archbishop who made her. It was this more than anything else that had given Rhea hope; magical talent was fickle, waxing sometimes even in the unlearned and waning sometimes even in the masters, but none since her departed mother had possessed magic that could coax the land into blooming the way Sitri could. (The greenhouse at Garreg Mach, too, mourned Sitri’s passing; for all the years afterward, the flowers inside did not bloom as they once had.)

It seemed inevitable, then, to those looking on from outside, that Sitri would become the new Archbishop when the old one finally stepped down — that she would usher in a new era of progress and harmony, and that she would unite the disparate peoples of Fódlan more effectively than her predecessor ever had. Even to those within the Monastery, who were generally more sedate in their optimism, Sitri’s meteoric rise began to seem less like far-fetched hope and more like an inevitability. Her pull was inescapable, and if Sitri of Garreg Mach Monastery noticed you, you had about as much choice in being dragged into her orbit as the Earth did the Sun.

Sitri noticed the mercenary who became a Knight, and discovered he was called Jeralt Eisner. He proved to be no exception.

But unlike all before him, Jeralt had a gravity of his own — to which even the famed star of the Monastery was not immune. Something in his gruff manner and quiet kindness had drawn her to him; for all her ability and fame, Sitri had never been allowed to step foot outside the Monastery. Perhaps it was inevitable, then, that the rough-and-tumble way Jeralt approached everything in his life, so foreign to the cultured conduct of the Monastery’s residents, would attract her in a way none had before. Inevitable, too, seemed the bloom of a warm romance amidst the frigid winds of Garreg Mach — Sitri chased Jeralt with the tempest-like energy she approached everything with, and before anyone had even picked up on their shared affection, they had exchanged vows beneath the doting gaze of the Archbishop.

It is here in her telling that Rhea begins to falter, and the nostalgia shining in Jeralt’s eyes becomes bittersweet. Sitri Eisner had been with child, but in the later days of her pregnancy she had become increasingly worried, and seemed to distance herself from everyone but her husband; even Rhea had not been privy to her misgivings in those days. What had worried her, Rhea still does not know (and by the mutinous look on Jeralt’s face when Rhea turns to him with an inquiring glance, he is not inclined to share). It did not seem to matter, though; the day of the child’s birth came to pass when Jeralt was away from the Monastery, sent on a mission to drive away wild packs of beasts that had begun to encroach on the hamlets beneath the mountains.

Sitri Eisner spent many fraught hours in labour, assisted by an increasingly apprehensive Rhea who did all she could to keep the woman and her child alive. Her efforts seemed to not all be in vain; eventually, near death, Sitri gave birth to a beautiful girl… who did not cry, or move, or breathe.

Stillborn.

But Sitri’s orbit was inescapable for _all_ — Rhea had been caught in it before anyone else, and even as Sitri lay dying with a lifeless child clutched to her chest, she persuaded Rhea with her last breaths to tear out the Goddess’ Crest inside her and give it to her daughter. The daughter lived as the mother died, with nobody left to witness her first breaths in a strange new world but a desperate, bewildered, and grieving woman who had just torn out her child’s heart and given it to her child’s child in a frantic attempt at keeping her alive.

“I wept,” admits Rhea freely. “I did not expect my desperation to yield a result; but Sitri was a marvel even on her deathbed, and she worked some manner of magic into her unbreathing child that I could not even begin to guess at. She wove her enchantment with trembling fingers and an incantation she must have invented herself (for I had never come across it before, and have never since), and she sealed her ritual with a kiss on her baby’s heart, and a whisper of what sounded like names and a prayer into her ear.

“I did not hear exactly what she said, but she assured me that her children would know, and always remember. I remember,” Rhea frowns suddenly, “I remember she said _children_ and not _child_ , just that once, but she would shake her head every time I pressed for an explanation and would ask me only to take her Crest Stone and give it to her baby. She was insistent; she even _begged_! And as much as I tried to save her, she was slipping beyond even me and eventually I couldn’t refuse her demands and when I agreed she looked so utterly _at peace_ that I couldn’t turn back on my word even as, even as I —” Rhea falters and heaves in a shuddering breath.

“The girl lived, afterwards,” continues Rhea in a smaller voice, “She did not scream as she came to life, and her heart did not beat; but she blinked and breathed, and I was simultaneously too elated and heartbroken to care much about her oddities. Jeralt returned to find that he had gained a cherished daughter but lost a beloved wife. He looked deeply into her eyes, when I handed her to him; I do not know what he sought in them, but moments later he named her Byleth and said only that Sitri would have loved her. And then — and then two weeks later, there was a great fire in the Knights’ Quarters that I believed to have claimed the lives of Jeralt and his child. I was inconsolable for years afterward, at the loss of my dear daughter, my beloved Knight Captain, and their child.

“This — this is the entirety of my story. I have spared no detail; my life is open to you to judge. How and why my mother has been brought back, I cannot tell, nor can I speculate as to why she is missing the memory of who she is. I cannot say what sorcery Sitri conjured to bring her back into this world, either; she never told me and now I think I shall never know, but I am glad nonetheless because she succeeded where I have always failed.”

There is a long minute of absolute stillness while everyone digests the information.

In the end, Jeralt is the one that breaks it. He looks at his children, and then at Rhea. The stiff demeanor he bore earlier in the conversation has given way to a weary staunchness — if, as Flayn suspects, he is the man who managed to set fire to a _stone-wrought building_ that somehow killed nobody and then escape the most well-guarded mountain path in Fódlan with a baby in tow, then this resolute bearing is likely when he is at his most dangerous.

Flayn watches in suspense as he draws himself up and off the wall he is leaning against and opens his mouth, eager to hear what he has to say; if Sitri Eisner confided in her husband, then he must surely know more than even Rhea about those final few months of her life and about the mystery that surrounds her death. Jeralt’s children, too, turn to him with widened eyes, and both Rhea and Seteth lean forward in anticipation of his words.

“I was looking at the baby’s eyes,” says Jeralt gravely. He pauses a moment as if to let his words sink in, then nods in satisfaction and relaxes back against the wall.

Everyone blinks.

“Fetching colour,” he adds, almost as an afterthought.

Everyone blinks again.

And then Byleth bursts into laughter.

The sudden eruption startles everyone save Jeralt, who only serenely smiles as if he has delivered a supremely humorous joke; even Sothis seems surprised at her sister’s outburst, who only wheezes out _pufferfish_ at the bewildered look she gets. Flayn doesn’t quite see what a pufferfish has to do with whatever the joke seems to be, but it must mean something because Sothis blinks rapidly in seeming realisation and then snorts out a giggle, which only spurs Byleth into laughing harder.

“Pardon?” asks Rhea, sounding more baffled than offended.

“You had to be there,” Byleth manages to choke out amidst her giggles, which makes Sothis crack up and Jeralt roll his eyes.

“Kids,” he says, shaking his head fondly.

“I-if you say so,” says Rhea, whose bewilderment now has an edge of worry to it.

Eventually, however, the peals of laughter die down and the somber mood returns. Jeralt still doesn’t seem inclined to properly elaborate on the mystery of his wife’s last actions or his own — which fans the flames of Flayn’s curiosity even harder, but she supposes it isn’t her place to inquire where even Rhea will not.

Sothis, however, seems to read the room — but then it would be hard not to with how everyone is acting, Flayn imagines. She likely sees how carefully Rhea and Seteth still avoid meeting her gaze, how Flayn gives her hair curious glances ever so often, and even how Byleth has ever-so-subtly shifted her stance to stand protectively instead of passively beside her.

Sothis likely sees all this and so decides to offer up with a stilted shrug, “I’ve only ever been Sothis Eisner. Sorry I don’t remember who you want me to be.” She opens her mouth to continue, but at Rhea’s downcast expression she clenches her jaw shut with an audible _click_ and turns to glare at a bare wall instead.

Seteth, ever the saviour, delicately breaks the slowly re-encroaching silence with a question on what everyone intends to do now. Flayn expects another contemplative hush at this question, but Byleth and Sothis both instantly voice their desire to attend the Officer’s Academy. 

Rhea’s mouth drops open when Jeralt doesn’t argue and sighs instead in resignation.

(Flayn squints dubiously at her father who looks like he sympathises perhaps a little _too_ much with the other man.)

“The Officer’s Academy is currently short a Professor,” explains Rhea haltingly, when nobody voices any objections to the siblings’ wishes. “If — if one of you took up the role, perhaps we could —”

Jeralt interrupts her before she can continue, “These idiots? Teach? You’d have a bloody revolution on your hands before you could even blink,” he says.

“He’s not wrong,” muses Sothis after a beat, and Byleth nods entirely seriously in agreement.

“We did almost cause one, that one time in Derdriu,” adds Byleth.

Before she can begin to elaborate at Seteth’s raised eyebrow, Jeralt coughs and continues.

“I’ll take the job, since you were likely to try and rope me back into service anyway, Lady Rhea,” he says firmly. “No offense, but at least this way I won’t have to deal with the heavy-handed mess known as the Knights of Seiros.”

Rhea looks so taken aback by this sentiment that she works her mouth around a reply that never comes. Judging by the mulish slant to Jeralt’s chin, he isn’t willing to refute or expand upon his assertion, either — and Flayn fears that another one of the deafening silences that have plagued this entire unfortunate conversation will descend upon the room. She also fears that if it does, she is likely to scream.

“I would be honoured to show you all around! Garreg Mach is home to some very beautiful scenery and a lot of things to do that are, um, very interesting,” blurts out Flayn, because she rather enjoys not being thought of as mad.

Their guests look rather taken aback at this proclamation; but her father has a glint in his eye that looks suspiciously like pride and it bolsters her confidence, so Flayn continues,

“Say, for instance, the practice grounds! They house many varieties of weaponry for the martially inclined, and they even feature training dummies to practice on!”

Sothis makes a politely interested sound, while Byleth looks as if she is trying to think up something gracious to say but is coming up blank. Jeralt just looks amused. Flayn decides to switch tactics; while Rhea had described Jeralt as rough-and-tumble, his daughters are clearly cut of a finer cloth despite their mercenary upbringing.

“But that is not all the Monastery offers; why, we have a lovely greenhouse which is in the fullest of blooms this season! And right next to it is the massive fishing lake, which I must admit is my personal favourite place to spend… time… at…?” she trails off at Byleth’s sudden stare, which harbours an unreadable emotion that makes her want to shiver.

“ _Massive_ fishing lake? _Favourite_ place?” repeats Byleth slowly.

“Yes, just past the dining area!” bounces back Flayn enthusiastically, determined to not let the other woman’s slightly concerning inflection dampen her spirits.

Flayn isn’t quite prepared for the strangled noise that leaves Byleth’s mouth, or for her gaze to intensify tenfold as she steps forward and commands with all the force of a battle-hardened general:

“ _Show me_.”

“Now you’ve really done it,” mutters Sothis with a long put-upon sigh.

* * *

(Weeks later, when Byleth is hunched over a bucket sorting through her catch and Sothis lounges nearby on the fishing deck, Flayn still wonders. She asks about the pufferfish. The siblings exchange a glance, and Byleth tells Flayn about a pair of blankets that Jeralt saved from the fire and gave them when they were scarcely old enough to understand. _“Your mother made these,”_ he had said. The blankets were small but warm, knit with love but unassuming, and had nothing in the way of patterns adorning them—

—save for a comically large blue-and-green pufferfish sewn on one side of both blankets. It was paired with a much smaller blue blowfish on the other side of Byleth’s blanket, and an equally small green blowfish on the other side of Sothis’.

Flayn blinks to process this, and Sothis adds in a conspiratorial tone that Jeralt had always told them they were both born with the same eyes.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm not a hundred percent satisfied with this chapter tbh, but i do really like a good chunk of it and i didn't want to rewrite it into something else, so... here we are!
> 
> inquiring minds might wish to know why a ‘revelation’ chapter like this occurs so early in the story, when classic canon-divergence-mystery-drama fics (like this one) usually hinge a lot on a tell-all climax after canon has already been heavily diverged, closer to the middle-end of the story. the answer is mostly that I decided that for a butterfly-effect approach to divergence AU storytelling like this, it matters less what precise colour or shape or form the butterfly took, and more so what cataclysms the ensuing tornado wrought. resolving most of the tension from the (disparate melodic lines of the) mysteries early (hence the codetta) makes it so that i can focus on events that take place during the actual storytelling and not have readers hang on to past events for an unnecessarily long time.
> 
> (that said, feel free to ask what my personal headcanon is if I didn’t quite do a good enough job of leaving the mystery resolved-but-not-resolved)
> 
> coming up: many, many different character POVs, and the background (and some foreground) shipping begins in earnest!


	6. Three Houses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The visitors settle in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sailing noises*

“Go fish,” says Mercedes softly.

“You’re lying, Mercie,” accuses Annette immediately.

Mercedes only smiles sweetly at her in reply, so she huffs, draws a card, and turns to Ashe in exasperation instead. “Fours?” asks Annette.

He chuckles sheepishly and parrots, “Go fish,” making Mercedes giggle and causing Annette to growl at them both.

“I think I prefer playing with Felix,” says Annette sourly. Mercedes makes a contemplative noise, and only winks at Annette when she gets a questioning glance.

“N-not like that!” protests Annette with a rapidly reddening face. Ashe smiles earnestly, and offers to invite Felix the next time they’re playing, which causes her to blush harder. Mercedes giggles again at this and says, “Cheer up, Annie! Ashe and I will even leave halfway through the game so you can make your move,” at which Annette can only make a strangled noise that makes Mercedes’ giggles turn to full blown laughter.

Eventually, they take pity on her and offer to take over her shift at the kitchens as payback (which, by the relieved look on Mercedes’ face when Annette accepts, she had been planning on doing anyway). By then Annette is sulking too much to continue their game, so Ashe suggests a walk around the marketplace to stretch their legs and brighten her sprits.

“Isn’t that bookseller known for selling rare tomes from Faerghus setting up a stall today?” queries Mercedes innocently, as they walk past the dormitories.

Ashe flushes slightly and stammers out, “O-oh? I am sure he must have quite the selection!”

Mercedes only gives him a knowing look in reply. Ashe plans to distract her with talk of baking cookbooks, which he knows the bookseller has in stock, but before he can do so a green-and-blue blur drops from the sky and lands in front of them out of nowhere with nary a sound but a muffled _oof._

“Oh my,” gasps Annette, and Mercedes lifts a hand to her mouth in worried surprise.

Ashe can only stare in amazement when he realises that the woman is _not_ Flayn, though she possesses a similar colour and volume of hair. Not that he thinks Flayn has much of a propensity to jump in front of people out of the sky, but he _did_ accidentally overhear a worrying discussion about human catapults between her and Raphael once, and he hasn’t quite managed to erase the mental image yet. He shakes his head to clear the thought, and focuses instead on the figure in front of them.

She is wearing lightly-worn but sturdy-looking leather armour, set over deep blue clothing. Her deep green hair is set into twintails that barely contain it; it flows around her like a cape that sways in the wind, and the sheer mass of it is only kept out of her eyes by way of a thin blue-and-gold cloth headband. There is a red-sheathed dagger strapped to her waist, and her gauntlets have thin metal strips on the backs of her hands for some purpose Ashe cannot even begin to guess at. It gives her dangerous and enigmatic ensemble of clothing a sense of legitimacy, though, and Ashe finds himself rooted to the spot as he waits for what must surely be a hardened mercenary to rope them into a dire quest.

“Blue Lions?” inquires the green-haired mercenary politely.

* * *

Caspar cannot fathom being as bored as he is right now, and yet with every passing instant he feels himself reach new levels of disinterest. His mind is dulling, his eyes are watering, his mouth is yawning; it is an undeniable fact that he has never before been stuck in such a state of utter tedium.

In a truly shocking reversal of roles, Linhardt does not appear to share his sentiments. Caspar is sure that if he were less bored, he could have made some sort of poignant observation about this turn of events, but with his mind being numbed more and more every second he cannot quite find it in himself to make the effort.

Instead, he lowers his head into his arms, and groans as loudly as he dares.

“Quiet,” hisses Linhardt. “If the old man senses anything is amiss, he will _never_ leave his post, and you will _never_ cease being bored.”

Caspar only rolls his eyes in reply.

“I promise I’ll spar a round with you if you stay quiet for the rest of today,” adds Linhardt, wincing when Caspar almost whoops in joy. Thankfully, he remembers at the last instant that they are attempting to be quiet, so he pumps his fist instead and mimes zipping his mouth shut.

It truly is a mind-numbing task, waiting for the head librarian to sneak out so that they can gain access to the restricted shelves on the upper floor of the library. They cannot be readily seen from where they are situated on the hanging beams of the library’s roof, so in theory Caspar could simply jump down towards the restricted floor and Linhardt could magically slow his fall — it happens to be exactly what they had planned, until they actually tried to do so and discovered Tomas the Librarian liked to take his afternoon naps on the restricted floor.

Caspar begins to think his luck may really have been cursed by Hubert for that one time he shouted in Edelgard’s presence too loudly.

“This really _is_ boring, though,” comes a whisper after what may have been a year or two, but was probably only half an hour judging by the length of the shadows beneath the window. Caspar thinks it’s rather rude of Linhardt to try to talk to him after he’d told Caspar to be quiet, and turns in his direction to pout in retort — but stops when he sees Linhardt staring at him with widened eyes.

No, not staring at him… staring _behind_ him.

Caspar turns around slowly, with great dread.

A blue-haired woman that he has never seen before is calmly perched on the next beam over. How long she has been here and how she even got up here in the first place, he does not know; he knows only that her deep grey attire blends in so well with the shadows of the ceiling he can barely make out her figure even when he knows exactly where she is.

The woman waves a short salute at Caspar when he catches what he thinks are her eyes.

“Black Eagles?” she whispers curiously.

* * *

Of all the comforts Jeralt would ever admit to missing in his years away from Garreg Mach, stables are near the top of the list. He was sure his faithful horse would have shared his opinion, so he’d left it where it slept peacefully that fateful night.

That hasn’t stopped him from wondering what happened to it, over the years, and now that he has returned to this place when he’d once been sure he would spend the rest of his days hiding away from it and the Archbishop’s ever-vigilant gaze within, he can’t help but endeavour to find out how his old companion ended up doing. So as soon as Rhea and Seteth had indicated they could take their leave to mingle with the fine folks over at the Officer’s Academy, he’d quietly snuck away in the direction of the stable. The students and professors could wait; he had a beloved horse (or, possibly, its descendants) to track.

It seems, however, that in his search he has hit a wall.

Or the stable door, to be more precise; swung open by an unsuspecting student right into his awaiting face. It’s a good thing Sitri had always told him he had a hard head, because the student behind the door was most definitely not pulling their punches.

He marvels, even through his currently doubled vision, at the strength the student — a thin waif of a girl — somehow managed to pack into opening the door. She must confuse his dazed expression for mental injury, because she is stumbling through hurried apologies and self-flagellation with the dizzying speed of a river. Her hair is certainly coloured that way; blue, like his daughter’s, but less like Byleth’s deep sea hue and more like the shade of shallower waters.

He blinks once, shakes his head to dust off the cobwebs, and says firmly but not unkindly, “Hey now, enough of that,” which halts the girl in her tracks.

“But I could have killed you,” she says morosely. “I-I’m a danger to everyone around me.”

He stares at her. And then he laughs.

“Kid, if my wife found out that the reason I joined her in the afterlife was a door, she’d find a way to kick me back out,” he says, still chortling.

She blinks rapidly at this, apology forgotten in her bewilderment. Jeralt smiles inwardly at the successful deflection; raising his brats out of hell taught him very early on that the best way to cheer them up when they were sad was to confuse them.

(He hopes Sothis doesn’t still think people express romantic affection by arm-wrestling like he had told her when two of his mercenaries had been caught making… conspicuous noises in their tent and she’d asked him, wide-eyed, what they were doing. That would be particularly embarrassing for her, he imagines, considering the moon-eyes she was making at that silver-haired noble brat earlier.)

“But anyway, how about I let you make it up to me?” he presses, before she can shake off her confusion. “You see, I’m looking for an old and beloved equine friend of mine, or possibly her descendants,” he continues, and describes his old warhorse at her wide-eyed answering nod.

She appears to mull it over, and says, “I don't think I've met a horse like that before... um, I-I know you’ve likely already thought of this, but have you tried calling him by his name? Horses are very smart and remember their old names, even long after they’re given new ones.”

He scratches his chin, and shrugs. “I haven’t, but you may be right. Loach!” His recently acquired chestnut mare pokes her head out of one of the stalls at the call, and whinnies at him.

“No, just my current horse,” he says with a sad shake of his head.

The girl blinks at him.

“I call all my horses Loach,” elaborates Jeralt.

* * *

Hilda really wants nothing more than to nap the day away, but she had the great misfortune of being born in the Leicester Alliance to a family of nobles, which practically guaranteed that she was going to attend the Officer’s Academy and join the Golden Deer House, and _that_ meant she was destined to meet a gloomy, shy, sky-haired, _cute_ girl that would capture her feeble heart utterly the very instant they met.

It has been months since, and every day she somehow manages to fall harder. Damn her heart and its weakness for cute things, and damn Marianne for being such a textbook definition of cuteness.

She huffs in annoyance, and goes to look for the girl who has mysteriously not been seen since breakfast. Leonie had remarked offhand an hour ago that she hadn’t seen Marianne at the greenhouse like she usually did on her insanely early morning runs (why anyone would give up precious hours of beauty sleep to run around like a lunatic was beyond Hilda), and the little parasite of worry that had lodged into Hilda’s brain only grew when Marianne didn’t turn up to any of their seminars or training practice.

Hilda worries because even though she wants nothing more to be the lazy noble she knows her reputation makes her out to be, she learned early on that her ideal lifestyle could only really come about if she worked as efficiently as possible to avoid doing as much work as she possibly could. Mostly, it had involved realising that the best way to go about it was to make other people do all the work for her, so Hilda has long since learned to notice details about people that would make them likelier to go along with her whimsies — details that even the best of sleuths might miss, in her humble opinion.

Hilda has watched Marianne more than she has anyone else, and she has noticed things she doesn’t think Marianne would ever want her to know.

(The thought fills her with a vague sort of guilt; she’s never felt so betrayed by her own conscience before. She asked Holst about what that guilt meant, once, and he’d just told her that silly things like that usually had something to do with being in love. And then he’d asked who it was and when she was planning on proposing, so she hasn’t written back since.

Ugh. The lovey-dovey books she grew up reading never mentioned having to deal with any of _this_.)

For instance, she has noticed that Marianne somehow _truly_ believes that she is a danger to those around her. Hilda had initially chalked it up to an extreme case of social anxiety like the purple-haired blur she sometimes sees hanging out in the vicinity of the Black Eagles, but it soon became clear that the lengths Marianne goes to in order to exclude herself from people have little to do with her being anxious about being social and more to do with her being a ridiculously _kind_ person who somehow believes the absolute worst of herself. Somehow, and defying all logic, soft-spoken and timid Marianne genuinely feels that everyone is better off without her around.

Hilda hasn’t quite pried into why Marianne would believe such a ridiculous thing, partly out of laziness but mostly out of fear of word getting back to Marianne; when she imagines Marianne turning those soulful brown orbs of hers to Hilda in disgust for nosing into her business like that, she feels the most awful chill crawl down her spine and can never quite overcome it enough to follow through with her line of inquiry.

She shudders again at just the thought. No, she’ll just have to make Marianne tell her herself.

But until she can, Marianne will keep on believing the worst of herself, and that would rankle her enough on its own — but what truly frightens Hilda is that she has caught Marianne sometimes staring with an unreadable emotion at the vastness of the valley directly below the bridge leading to the Monastery’s cathedral. In her worst moments, fed by lovesick paranoia, Hilda imagines that the emotion in Marianne’s eyes is _wistfulness_ and the thought makes the back of her throat burn. Because if Marianne really had thoughts like that, who would she even _talk to_ about them? The girl’s best friend is a horse, for Goddess’ sake, and horses might be good listeners but she hardly imagines they can offer actual advice—

— _oh._

She turns away from the bridge and starts sprinting in the direction of the stable.

When she gets there, slightly out of breath — but only slightly, because being effectively lazy means she has to keep in shape — she hears voices from inside, and one of them is Marianne’s. She hesitates only for a moment before stepping inside (and wrinkles her nose instantly at the _stench_ ), and sees Marianne speaking in her usual soft and hesitant way to a tall, armored behemoth of a man. In the darkness of the stables, she can’t make out much of his face save that he looks grizzled and dangerous, especially next to shy, sweet Marianne.

Hackles raised, she considers shouting in alarm and maybe even attacking him to save her fellow student, but Marianne notices her before that can happen and reassures her of her safety with a, “O-oh! Hello, Hilda,” in surprised welcome. Hilda’s heart nearly explodes out of her chest in relief.

Goddess, this girl will be the death of her.

The armored behemoth looks much less fearsome up close too, she realises sheepishly. He reminds her of a bear, more than anything — not the scary varieties Holst had always told her she should play dead around, but the adorable armoured stuffies she sometimes sees for sale at the marketplace. The bear-man raises a hand in greeting, and thoughtfully scratches his chin as he considers Hilda, and then Marianne.

“Would the two of you happen to be Golden Deer?” he queries in smooth, rumbling tones.

* * *

In the darkness of a dusty and disused storage room, sealed magically against intruders:

“Agent Seaweed, report,” a woman in blue demands imperiously. She is one of three in the room; opposite her is another woman, taller and clad in ash grey, and next to this woman is an even taller man, armoured in earthy brown.

“Affirmative, Agent Greenleaf,” replies the woman in grey. The woman in blue makes a face at the name, but this does not deter the grey-clad one, who continues:

“The Black Eagles House are the most disparate group of individuals I have ever encountered. They are all nothing alike; their interests are mutually exclusive, their hobbies are all incompatible, and their personalities clash like pink on green.

“But beneath their seemingly incongruent dispositions seems to lie some hidden force that makes them want to work together, despite not knowing each other very well at all. I have my speculations that this force may be the charisma of the house leader, Edelgard von Hresvelg; the entire house speaks of her with the utmost respect, even those purporting to rival her — but any attempted investigation into her was stonewalled quite effectively by her retainer who seems… well, paranoid, at the least.

It is my personal recommendation, given even my rudimentary examination of the students in other houses, that the Black Eagles House be placed at the top of the list of houses with the most potential.”

“I see,” says the woman in blue. They all contemplate the information for several minutes of silence — then the blue-attired woman gestures at the third figure in the room, who is watching the other two with a highly entertained look on his face.

“Agent Grizzly, report,” she says to him. “And no, Byleth, we aren’t changing his coded name to Blade-bear, that would _defeat the whole purpose,_ ” she adds when the woman in grey looks like she is about to interject.

Byleth pouts, but relents. Jeralt snorts in amusement, and presents his findings.

“The Golden Deer House seem like they’re a lot less intensely focused than their counterparts, and they work together pretty well. I suppose some of it can be laid down to the general culture of the Leicester Alliance — groups of people who usually traditionally hate each other have gotten used to working together. Most of it, though, is probably because their house leader, Claude von Riegan, is about as sneaky and charming as they come — even old man Riegan doesn’t hold a candle to him. Everyone in that house likes him, and somehow, he’s managed to make them like _each other_ , too.”

He pauses for a moment, then reluctantly adds, “They’re probably the weakest on the list overall — but they’ve got a girl I think I might have taught to hold a sword about ten years ago, and I’m pretty sure she’s gone around worshipping my name since, so I’m going to preemptively refuse to teach them.”

Byleth’s eyes twinkle, already dreaming up ways to use this to torment him, and Sothis wonders, “Was this when you decided it was a good idea to have our company split up and follow four different routes in the middle of a civil war, so _all_ of us got lost?”

Jeralt coughs and admits, “Not my finest idea.”

Sothis sniffs in disdain. “It’s a good thing I decided to train to become our tactician after that mess,” she says primly.

“And we appreciate you greatly for it,” says Byleth, and cheekily pats Sothis on the head. “Tactical gremlin.”

Sothis smacks her hand off and hisses menacingly, “The next time you crack a joke at my height, _remember that I know where you sleep._ ” Byleth looks decidedly unimpressed, and deadpans, “That’s because we usually sleep next to each other in the same tent. Don’t make me kick you out.” Sothis is about to make a heated retort before Jeralt loudly clears his throat to head off the oncoming argument.

“I thought we were discussing the Houses of the Officer’s Academy,” he says pointedly. Both women break off their heated glares in embarrassment, and Sothis continues with their previous line of discussion after a short pause.

“I will share my own observations of the Blue Lions House, and my assessment of their potential,” she says. “They consist of a core of childhood friends that seem to have been driven simultaneously both closer together yet held further apart due to events at Duscur. The members of the house that are not a part of this core are still driven individuals, although less intensely, and their eagerness to fit in means that the Blue Lions work well as a unit, but I imagine they would likely not do terribly well when split apart into smaller groups.

“More than either of the other two houses, they seem to be bound by tragedy and mutual suffering — winters are cold in Faerghus, and it seems the tradition of bundling together for warmth has stuck with the Blue Lions even here. But despite their clashing ideals, they are all extremely formidable individuals, and if these differences are resolved they could easily become a force greater than the sum of its parts and dwarf the other two houses in strength.”

She pauses for a minute to let the other two absorb the information.

“Based on what we’ve collected so far, I believe the Blue Lions would benefit the most from our presence and direct intervention. The Golden Deer seem to be mostly self-sufficient, minus a few… outliers I have seen, but a lack of forceful direction, rather than forceful organisation, seems to hold them back. As for the Black Eagles, their potential would shine even more with guidance, but their house leader seems capable enough to bring it easily to the fore.

“The far greater problem seems to be the lack of unity _across_ the houses. The Officer’s Academy reinforces the cultural split in Fódlan, intentionally or not, and it is a massive waste of potential — because as great as these houses are on their own, they would be an unstoppable force of change when put together. And, given that we seem to have nearly the entire sum of heirs to almost every important family of influence on the continent enrolled at the Academy at the moment… well, we may have happened upon quite the powder-keg.”

“And now to stop it from exploding and taking the continent with it,” murmurs Byleth. “A worthy challenge for Fódlan’s finest tactician, wouldn’t you say?”

Sothis doesn’t say, as she walks to the door of the room and swings it open to reveal the mid-afternoon sun. She stands in the doorway for a moment, framed in gold; then she exhales softly and turns back to the two still in the room.

“Well,” she breathes. “There’s only one way to find out.”

* * *

“Were those all the Blue Lions that caught your attention?” asks Dimitri.

“Just one last one,” says Sothis. “You, to be exact.”

“Me? Oh, um, forgive me, but… it’s a bit difficult to open up on the spot, don’t you think?” stammers Dimitri.

Jeralt reaches out and pats him reassuringly on the shoulder, making Dimitri blink at the unexpected contact. It does seem to bolster his confidence though, since he smiles in appreciation at Jeralt.

“Still, I… I suppose I can tell you that my story has not been a pleasant one,” he continues less nervously. “I do hope that does not colour your view of me, though,” he adds earnestly.

“Nah, you’re good,” says Sothis.

“What she said,” says Byleth.

“I am glad,” says Dimitri, bowing. “So… does this mean one of you will be joining our house as a student, or perhaps a Professor?” he asks intently.

Byleth winks at him, making him flush slightly. “Never say never, Your Highness,” she sing-songs.

* * *

Claude just laughs at them when they try.

“Piqued your interest, have I? You’ve definitely caught my eye, too, but, well… what’s life without a bit of mystery?” he says with a roguish wink.

“Exceedingly boring,” replies Byleth with a wink of her own. “Which is why we won’t be telling you which of us is the new Professor quite yet.”

He pouts, but admits defeat graciously. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough,” he shrugs. “Were there any other Golden Deer you wanted to know more about?”

“The white-haired girl. Lysithea, I think you said? She seemed a bit young to be… well, to be here,” says Sothis curiously.

“She probably _is_ the youngest student here,” he admits easily. “But don’t let her catch you saying that, because she gets angry if you treat her like a child.”

Sothis has a brief, inexplicable vision of a hulking knight in dark armor being turned into a pincushion, and shivers slightly.

“But I do it on purpose,” adds Claude mischievously. “You gotta make your own fun in this place, y’know?”

* * *

“I hope learning more about the Black Eagles has convinced you to lend your strength to the Empire,” says Edelgard with equal parts hope and trepidation laced into her tone.

Sothis smiles easily in reply. “You may not be left disappointed,” she says.

Edelgard brightens instantly. “Truly? Well then, if it will help your decision along, I would be happy to tell you more about any of the Black Eagles. Although… I do believe you asked about everyone already,” she says with a slight laugh.

“Not everyone,” parries Sothis deftly. “You haven’t spoken about yourself _nearly_ as much as I would have liked.”

The tips of Edelgard’s ears redden a bit. Byleth mutters quietly to Jeralt, _who taught her to be that smooth?_ Sothis pretends not to hear Jeralt’s, _definitely not me, you’ve seen me try to flirt,_ as Edelgard replies.

“Me? Well, some think I’m a bit distant… arrogant, even. But there’s little to be done, what with my impending destiny as the next Emperor,” she says resolutely. “What else… well, it seems that we may have similar personalities.”

Sothis blinks. “How can you tell?” she wonders.

Edelgard’s blush becomes slightly more pronounced, and she coughs in an attempt to disguise it. “Well, I can’t _really_ , I suppose, but you did mention that you liked sweets, and I must confess to enjoying them as well, so I thought…” she trails off, embarrassed.

“A better reason than any,” says Sothis vehemently, as Byleth mimes gagging at their saccharine display.

* * *

“Why, you must be the new professor. My, how stern and handsome you are!” gushes a woman who introduces herself as Manuela. Jeralt sighs as he begins to reply in the affirmative, but he is interrupted before he can do so.

“Wait, Manuela, as in Mittelfrank Opera’s famous songstress?” gasps Sothis. Manuela’s eyes widen in pleased surprise.

“Why yes! I am not surprised you’ve heard of me; after all, I was their beautiful and peerless—”

“Spare us the needless chatter, Manuela,” interrupts her grey-haired companion. Manuela bristles in indignation, but he carries on unaffected and introduces himself as Hanneman, the Academy’s resident expert on Crests.

“I’ve heard you’ve all already been introduced to the three Houses at the Officer’s Academy. They are all quite different, so I hope you’ve made it a point to get to know them,” he says. At Jeralt’s answering nod, he continues, “I suppose then you must know that the next Emperor, King, and Sovereign are all here. It certainly promises to be an interesting year for the Academy.”

“The old man has a point,” agrees Manuela snidely, making Hanneman grimace. “I just hope none of those little treasures cause much trouble.”

“Indeed,” he muses, shooting her a sidelong glare. “And that does remind me,” he adds, “please do stop by my research laboratory when you’ve a moment.”

Eventually, their chatter lapses into silence. Lady Rhea, from where she is standing next to Seteth in the audience chamber where they are all gathered, speaks up into it:

“I hope that you have all found the well-intentioned souls of each House brimming with vitality, and have gotten to know them quite well by now. Professors Manuela and Hanneman have graciously decided to let you have the first pick, so what will your choice be?”

“The Blue Lions, led by Dimitri,” says Jeralt firmly.

“Unsurprising,” replies Rhea with a faint smile. “I suppose it is only — hm?” she stops when Sothis clears her throat loudly.

“We didn’t state _our_ choice,” says Sothis. “And as it so happens, my sister and I have decided to join the Black Eagles led by Edelgard, instead.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ships! ships everywhere!
> 
> again, not a whole lot of plot in this one, but we're still in the character-setup-and-study section of the story, and will be for about... another 2 chapters, I'd say, so we will get to meet all our fwiends and see them muck about in a good amount of detail before we move on to more action-y things, like, say, the horrors of battle, or copious amounts of bloodshed, or even unresolved childhood traumas!
> 
> also yes, that Jeralt/Geralt Loach/Roach pun is the entire reason that Marianne scene exists. i'm really quite proud of it, and if i make anyone groan in dismay when they get the joke or read this note, i will have fulfilled my purpose in life.


	7. Fódlan Winds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sothis channels her inner Holmes, Jeralt fears for the wellbeing of the world, Claude falls prey to confirmation bias, and Dimitri learns that he isn’t supposed to play with fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written (very loosely) following the musical structure of Fódlan Winds (Thunder).

The forest outside Garreg Mach’s walls is a commonplace affair in those parts: patches of densely clustered trees unravel into grassy plains, weathered stone shelters from eras gone by act as waysigns for those who choose to explore the forests, and sporadically, remnants of skirmishes and bandit attacks tar the otherwise untouched landscape.

It is in this forest that the Officer’s Academy chooses to hold its mock battles between its various Houses, and it is in one of the clumps of trees that make up this sparse jungle that the Black Eagles are currently gathered.

Here, leaning to the stump of a tree: Linhardt von Hevring, with his head down, eyes closed, and snores in time with dreams unknown. Close by Linhardt, and with only an arm as her pillow, naps also: Byleth Eisner, who has decided for reasons undetermined to rest before the upcoming test of her skill.

There, pacing around in stark contrast to the motionlessness of her fellow students: Edelgard von Hresvelg. Her armoured uniform is primly kept, as always, and not a hair is out of its place in the decorative purple ribbons that adorn and tame her silvery white locks.

Edelgard tries to avoid making it obvious, but time betrays the path of her strides as it betrays everything else, so it is quickly noticeable that she cuts roundabout circles around: Sothis Eisner, who sits cross-legged on the thick forest floor, hunched over a large square parchment with odd lines drawn all over it.

And finally, last but never the least, leaning against a tree watching the entire scene unfold with brows that have only risen higher for the past few hours, and with an inner monologue bemoaning Professor Manuela’s abandonment of their class for this mock battle: Dorothea Arnault. Who also wishes she’d asked Petra for tips on hair care in combat, because she doesn’t know how the girl keeps her amazingly intricate hairstyle immaculate throughout their grueling training sessions; her own hair, by contrast, is already beginning to itch and stick uncomfortably to her scalp and the back of her neck in the warm mugginess of this forest, and they haven’t even started fighting yet.

Dorothea sighs moodily, but tries to turn her thoughts away from her misery and instead contemplates the new additions to her House.

She hadn’t been _quite_ sure what to think of the pair of mercenaries when they had appeared out of nowhere alongside a starstruck Edelgard a week past. They had turned out to be charming conversationalists, though, and were certainly easy on the eyes; she’d definitely understood Edie’s unexpectedly fervent gushing about their “prodigious strength” much better after she’d seen them. Still, she’d felt there was an aura of mystery to them that seemed alluring, to be sure, but ultimately dangerous.

She knows now that whatever she thought of them then and whatever mysterious aura she’d thought they had before they joined the Black Eagles could never have compared to _this_.

 _This,_ of course, being their situation today. Sothis, after turning up to their pre-battle strategy meeting an hour late, had apologised only succinctly for oversleeping (Linhardt’s eyes had gleamed with vindication) before she’d turned to Edelgard and asked her if she had a map of the area where they were to conduct their mock battle against the other two houses. Edelgard, to her credit, had taken it in remarkable stride and drawn a rudimentary layout of the place for the woman—

—who has, by now, spent about two of their three allotted pre-battle strategy hours staring at the drawing and making vaguely interested noises every so often, as she marks down nonsensical symbols on the makeshift map. The taller twin, meanwhile, had joined Linhardt in his nap next to his tree stump almost as soon as Sothis had taken a seat on the grassy ground to examine the map.

Edelgard has been giving Dorothea confused glances for the past two hours, to which she can only give helpless shrugs in response.

It seems, though, that not even Edelgard’s crush has taken away her fastidiousness, because she approaches Sothis, who still sits scribbling away, and opens her mouth to finally ask—

“Done!” exclaims Sothis, making Edelgard jump slightly in surprise.

“Done?” echoes Edelgard. Sothis looks up at her and blinks languidly, as if only just realising that she isn’t alone.

Edelgard blinks back at her. Sothis tilts her head and smiles in response.

“By done, I mean of course that I am done devising a practically foolproof strategy that encompasses many elements, the most critical of which involves winning this mock battle handily.”

Edelgard nods, seemingly too taken aback to actually say anything in reply.

“Um… wouldn’t any good strategy involve winning the battle?” asks Dorothea in her stead.

“Not always,” says Sothis with not a hint of mockery. “Knowing when to lose is a skill that is often more essential than knowing how to win. But fortunately for us,” she jumps up onto her tiptoes and stretches her arms to the sky, vaguely catlike, then turns to Dorothea with those piercing green eyes and a Cheshire grin, “I don’t see the need to lose today.”

Despite feeling rather like a bug being slowly dissected under the weight of that gaze, Dorothea manages to return a smile, even if whatever witty reply she’d managed to think up can’t quite make it past her suddenly leaden tongue. Edie, bless her soul, repays her for asking her question earlier and says, voice tinged with hope, “Let’s wake the other two up and show the other houses what the Black Eagles can do, then.”

* * *

“It’s not about winning?” echoes Ashe curiously.

“Not in the slightest,” affirms Jeralt. “It’s about surviving whatever hellish scheme my daughter’s managed to cook up,” he continues grimly, as he surveys the thunderstorm that is currently raging in the clump of trees east of where the Blue Lions are gathered.

The thunderstorm that hangs over _only_ that clump of trees. It makes for a comical sight; a thick black cloud that is the solitary source of the storm looms low over what he knows is the starting position for the Golden Deer, and it eases its heavy burdens in the form of sheets of rain that have surely soaked whoever is caught inside. The comedy fades abruptly when the cloud flashes and releases a sharp _crack_ of lightning that slams into a tree, and the sickening sound of splintering wood reaches them even from afar.

“Oh my,” says Mercedes, looking mildly concerned.

Jeralt watches as Dimitri’s hands tighten on his lance at her words; the boy is holding together quite admirably, even though he is agitated for some reason Jeralt cannot fathom. Of all his students that he has watched train over the week he has been here, the Prince seems to be the most capable — strange, then, that he also seems to be the most worried. But perhaps Dimitri is afraid not of someone hurting him, but of him hurting someone…

 _Oh my, indeed,_ thinks Jeralt with an audible grunt, as he instructs his students to hunker down and wait for the inevitable clash.

He really hopes Byleth knows what she’s doing.

* * *

Claude grunts in annoyance. His carefully crafted scheme had been put in place three days before the actual battle; he’d taken great care to hold a discussion where Hubert could easily listen in, on how Lorenz had rebellious tendencies and would probably rush head on at their enemies and get himself eliminated early in the battle.

He’d only allowed himself a slight smile in triumph when he’d caught that loudmouth Ferdinand von Aegir talking about how they’d focus all of their forces in a single direction in the battle while Ashe listened, hidden in a nearby hedge. Clearly, the Black Eagles intended to flaunt their newly-acquired knowledge to lure the Lions into executing a pincer move only to find the Deer doing the same, and have them fight each other out. An ingenious ploy; but Hubert, for all his carefully cultivated dark and broody aura, is clearly not an expert at the art of scheming. He had failed to account for the cardinal rule of scheming against Claude von Riegan, after all: Claude always plays the game one level above his opponents.

 _That,_ thinks Claude as he dashes through the thick patch of woodland drenched thoroughly by the deluge of rain, _was the naivety of someone who didn’t know their opponent could just upend the entire blasted board._

As if to underscore his thought, a deafening _boom_ sounds almost throws him off his feet as the scent of ozone fills his nostrils.

Those Eisner twins are turning out to be _far_ more dangerous than he’d planned for.

“Ouch! I yield, I yield!” he faintly hears Hilda yell out, after he has regained some of his hearing. _Twenty paces away_ , he estimates, and grimaces. Lorenz and Ignatz, despite having Hilda’s backup, had somehow been lured out of their strategically positioned spots and taken out in quick succession — Claude hadn’t even _known_ they’d been taken out, or how many enemies they’d fought, until he had passed the scratching post they were using to check in on each other and found a whole hour’s worth of confirmation tallies missing from it.

Claude has no idea how many assailants Hilda had to deal with, either, but he guesses there must have been two — because he’s managed to bribe Hilda into sparring with him before, and she’d trounced him so thoroughly he’d sulked for a week. The chances of someone beating Hilda in a one-on-one are… slim, to say the least, and he doubts the enemy has more than two Eagles to spare fighting her.

He isn’t surprised when he finally gets close enough to peek at the aftermath of the fight. Linhardt is patching up Hilda’s reddened arm with an apologetic look on his face, and Dorothea chats with her about… haircare in battle? Surely he’s misheard — but as he creeps closer to investigate the veracity of what his ears are telling him, a voice whispers into his them, “Careful, Claude.”

Claude resolves instantly to buy Lysithea an entire cake as an apology for mocking her fear of ghosts as he barely restrains the urge to shriek, and spins around to face—

—nothing. The forest behind him is bogged down by the constant rain, but it is silent and still otherwise. Not a shape can be seen moving in the shadows of the trees, so he relaxes the death grip on his bow, and turns around again—

—to find that Hilda has vanished, and Dorothea and Linhardt are nowhere to be seen either. He stares in astonishment through the gap in the trees, then runs over to where he saw them talking. There is not a sign of them to be found; no burn marks on the tree behind where Hilda stood not a moment ago, no footsteps in the muddy soil, not even the slight tang of healing magic in the air.

He… he hadn’t imagined all that, had he?

No, not even his occasionally weird brain could conjure up a scene so vivid. It must have been an illusion, he deduces, and turns around to take cover and gather proof for his theory — and comes face to face with the Imperial Princess, who stands less than a foot away staring calmly at him.

“I told you we’d win,” says Edelgard, and whacks him into unconsciousness before he can even blink.

* * *

Dorothea’s brain is beginning to hurt from flip-flopping on her opinion on their new housemates so much.

Still, it’s probably never going to dip too sharply ever again, given that they dispatched of the Golden Deer with a frightening efficacy beyond her wildest dreams. She has not a single scratch on her, and even though rivulets of water stream down all their raincoats and they haven’t escaped being soaked in the storm Byleth had somehow called down, their entire class is also otherwise entirely untouched.

She can also see that Edelgard hasn’t been able to repress a smile since they took down Claude, so she nudges her house leader with an elbow and whispers, “Your gay is showing, Edie.”

Edelgard smile vanishes as she flushes violently and shoves Dorothea away with a venomous glare. Dorothea giggles, causing their other housemates to look over in mild interest. Edelgard, to her credit, affects a neutral expression and somehow wills her blush away as quickly as it had appeared, as she regards them back stoically.

They all collectively shrug; Byleth and Linhardt return to patching up Lorenz, who has twisted his ankle and seems to be milking their combined healing prowess for all it is worth, and Sothis goes back to untying the ropes binding Professor Hanneman to a tree.

“Quite the impressive display,” remarks Professor Manuela from where she has stepped into the battleground to check in on their progress and relieve them of their mock-prisoners.

“Yes, the new Black Eagles are quite the formidable foes!” gushes Ignatz, who is attempting to rouse a still dosing Claude and has received only a half-hearted mumble in response so far.

“I’ll carry him,” grumbles Hilda, as she lifts his lanky form into a bridal carry so effortless it looks as if she’s lifting no more than a bag of feathers. Dorothea is suddenly very glad she chose to engage the pink-haired woman from a distance.

She may have felt awful in the moment, hurling bolts of lightning at someone armed with only an axe, but she feels increasingly certain that Edelgard isn’t the only person at the Academy who could split her open with even a blunted training axe. Although, thinking of Edelgard… her eye catches on the suspicious bump on Claude’s head as he jostles around in Hilda’s grip.

Edelgard only bats her lashes innocently when Dorothea raises a questioning brow at her.

“My goodness,” says Professor Hanneman finally, when Sothis has finally freed him. “The leadership of someone with actual battle experience is… well, I was less than useless.”

“Hey!” says Professor Manuela with an indignant frown, “You didn’t compliment _me_ like that when my class won last year!”

Sothis smiles easily at the both of them, and even bows her head briefly in deference. “But your academic prowess far outstrips ours, Professors,” she says. Professors Manuela and Hanneman both beam at her, quarrel forgotten.

“We look forward greatly to learning what you have to teach us,” adds Byleth as she gives Lorenz a hand up, and Dorothea swears she sees her Professors’ eyes shine with some sort of voracious hunger. After that miraculous downpour Byleth had somehow summoned, though, and given that both Professors specialise in the magical arts, Dorothea supposes she can see why. The sheer power it must have taken to conjure something like that on what was otherwise a perfectly dry and sunny day…

…on the whole, she is rather glad the two enigmatic mercenaries chose to join the Black Eagles.

* * *

Linhardt is, even now, not quite sure why he was ever asked to be a part of this mock battle.

He had been napping when Professor Manuela went over the specifics of their upcoming mock battle, but he had definitely _not_ been napping when Caspar had loudly and enthusiastically demanded to be a part of their five-person team. The Professor had suggested that they include a healer in their team instead, though, since she wouldn’t be participating in order to gauge the capabilities of their newest members more fully — and Edelgard’s eyes had slid over to him instantly.

Damn her insistent nagging and unquenchable desire for him to be _better_. He knows she means well, but Linhardt truly has no stomach for battle and would readily curse his talent for the Faith arts if not for Caspar’s utter inability to keep himself out of trouble.

( _He keeps you honest,_ Edelgard had mused quietly to him once, and damn him if he knew what on Fódlan she had meant by _that._ )

But try as he might, Linhardt cannot blame Edelgard for his participation — because while she had turned to him, she had not been the one to suggest nonchalantly that Linhardt was a healer of some repute. (That Linhardt has a _reputation_ is news even to him.)

No, the dubious honour of his inclusion in this training exercise belonged to the blue-haired woman currently traipsing along leisurely at his side. The same one who had caught him and Caspar on the _roofbeams_ of the library, somehow, barely a day after she had seen the Monastery for the first time.

Linhardt had known she was dangerous, then, but Byleth seems determined to cement the fact into all their minds — creating a localised thunderstorm is not a feat he has ever heard of in all the legends of mages he has read, but he has now seen a mercenary call one up with barely an hour’s worth of preparation from a cloudless sky.

The mercenary who he also knows set up some kind of illusory trap for Claude along with Edelgard — given the nasty bump on his head and Edelgard’s satisfied smirk, Byleth probably didn’t directly take him out, but illusions are _difficult_ magic to maintain, especially against someone as keen-eyed as the prospective Duke Riegan.

Then, as if she had felt like she hadn’t made enough of a point, she’d just helped him Heal Lorenz’s broken ankle — as if to show that she still had plenty of fire left in her.

Byleth Eisner is playing a dangerous game, and Linhardt knows that he is likely to never escape the thick of it given all that he’s seen today. Perhaps he can take solace in pretending that he had been caught in her web all the way back when she’d caught him in the library, and that he never could have escaped anyway. Predestination isn’t his favourite philosophy to subscribe to, but contemplating the magnitudes of coincidence that needed to have happened otherwise—

—well. At least this mock battle isn’t _boring_.

* * *

Mercedes has barely the time to blink and call out a warning to Ashe before a fireball the size of her head slams into the ground next to her feet. She looks at its source with widened eyes, then lets out an uncharacteristic curse as she sees Byleth cast another one twice its size.

Mercedes pulls out of a hastily executed roll and wonders if someone forgot to tell the mercenary that this was a _mock_ battle.

Undeterred by and unaware of Mercedes’ inner turmoil, Byleth casts a third, absolutely _gigantic_ ball of fire at her. It travels slower than its predecessors, but that doesn’t seem to matter because Mercedes realises midway through another lunge-and-roll that she’s never really been taught to roll properly, and her ankle twists as soon as she attempts to straighten out of her most ambitious attempt at a roll yet.

The fireball is large enough that her halfway attempt at dodging doesn’t even begin to cover the width of it, though, and Mercedes frantically searches her mind for the _Heal_ incantation to cast it preemptively because a fireball that size will surely _melt_ her—

— _pomf._

The apocalyptic force of a particularly soft pillow smacks into her and causes her to flop unceremoniously onto the ground. Byleth marches up to her, grinning, then brandishes her training blade at Mercedes like a conductor’s baton and asks her if she yields.

Mercedes breaks into laughter, nodding. “Dear me,” she says between giggles. “Here I thought you were overexerting yourself, running around producing all those wondrous feats of magic — but were they all really just illusions?”

Byleth’s grin widens as she lowers her sword, and admits, “Some of them. You’ll just have to forever wonder which ones weren’t, though,” then winks as if to accentuate the mystery.

Mercedes shakes her head slowly, still in disbelief. Byleth notices her twisted ankle and her grin turns sheepish as she apologises for the injury, and steps closer with a hand glowing with the cool blue light of _Heal_. Mercedes waves her off with a giggle as she releases her previously prepared spell and watches as the swelling and pain vanish without a trace. “See? I’m perfectly alright,” she says, standing. Byleth withdraws her hand with a surprised look, but Mercedes thinks she sees a slight shade of relief in the woman’s eyes for a half-moment too.

Not so immune to overtaxing herself after all, then.

She lets it go, though, resolving to lecture the woman off the battlefield, later, and looks instead in the direction she’d last seen Ashe in. His bow lies discarded on the ground, and he seems to have surrendered to a cackling Dorothea, who ruffles his hair and calls him _cute,_ which predictably makes him flush an adorable shade of red. She hears him ask if he can accompany the Black Eagles at a distance and earnestly promises that he won’t interfere, just that he wishes to observe their amazing tactics for himself.

Mercedes smiles to herself, and decides that she’ll have to ask Annette to help her bake Ashe a cake later for giving her an opportunity to fulfill her own curiosity. She asks Byleth the same question as they jog over to where Dorothea and Ashe stand, and the woman shrugs in response.

“Professor Manuela didn’t say you couldn’t, so I don’t see the harm,” she says, and Mercedes claps her hands in excitement.

“Oh goodness! I’m sure this will be lots of fun!” she exclaims giddily.

* * *

Dedue narrows his eyes at Sothis.

She glares up at him and narrows hers back.

“It is very unlikely that you will win,” he rumbles steadily. “I am sworn to protect His Highness, and I do not intend to fail.”

“Nobody ever does,” says Sothis snidely, and jumps up to sock him in the face. He successfully raises an arm to block, but the sheer strength of her blow is such that his gauntlet almost snaps under the pressure, and he stumbles back a few steps.

With how stoic she has seen the man always act, Sothis knows the slight widening of his eyes would have been a theatric gasp of surprise on anyone else. She grins savagely, and presses her advantage.

_Kick, spin around, regain footing._

Dedue almost falls under the sudden onslaught, but the man is built rather frustratingly like a tree so he doesn’t quite make it all the way to the ground, and instead lashes out with surprising speed and throws a series of jabs at her. She rolls in time with his punches, throwing some of her own — and notices from the corner of her eye Edelgard, who sneaks steadily through the treeline on her right in the direction of the stone structure that has become the Blue Lions stronghold in the mock battle.

_Feint left, block._

The impact of his blocked blow rattles her arm, but she notices that he clearly relies on it to stun her because he has otherwise overextended far beyond his centre of mass. Sothis is never so easily shaken after a lifetime of sparring with Jeralt who is almost as tall as Dedue and hits with Crest-reinforced fury far beyond his, so she grins and pulls at his gauntlet, throwing him off balance—

_Reverse grip, duck underneath, jab solar plexus._

He wheezes hard and crumples like a deck of cards. She steps behind him deftly, pulls out a training dagger, and holds the cold dulled steel flat against the back of his neck, at which he goes perfectly and abnormally still.

She smiles, and hopes Edelgard and Byleth have similar success with their assigned adversary.

* * *

Dimitri shouts, and charges at Edelgard with all the might and grace of a rampaging bull. Edelgard has half a mind to roll into him and attempt to grapple it out of his hands — but instead she ducks at the very last second, twists herself to the left, and slams an open palm into the lance. Predictably, Dimitri does not let go of it, so his own weapon smacks him viciously in the chin.

She grins fiercely, and runs to slam her axe down where he stands with a reverberating dull _thud_. He barely manages to recover and roll out of the way in time, but she chases unrelentingly; a swipe of her axe barely misses his leg, and a second one _clangs_ deafeningly against the blade of his lance hastily brought to bear against her assault.

He grins back in challenge — despite their political rivalry, and despite even the slightly chilling hint of dark emotion she sometimes sees behind his gaze, Edelgard has always found it exhilarating when she can finally cut loose against him in combat, defying all norms of noble politeness.

There is a familiar heat to their dance, though, she realises, as she bats aside his lance with a strength that easily rivals his own. Edelgard almost feels like she’s been here before, in this courante of advances and retreats; both sides steadily build to an explosive finale, or perhaps a transition into a more measured form, and a memory begins to flash past Edelgard’s eyes—

—but at the same time a ball of _Fire_ screams into the path of a cutting _Gale_ , and both feed into each other in an unholy conflagration that slams into an unprepared Dimitri’s back and sends him sprawling into the ground, out for the count.

Whatever wisps of remembrance were forming fade away, and Edelgard almost regrets how impeccably Byleth and Linhardt timed their combined attack.

* * *

Jeralt surveys the students gathered before him; five Black Eagles, unhurt and looking rather fresh, and four of his own Blue Lions, decidedly not so. Three of them stand behind the Black Eagles with looks of minor chagrin, while their house leader is slung across Byleth’s back, out like a light.

Jeralt rubs his beard thoughtfully as Sothis taps out an impatient rhythm with her foot.

Then he sighs, and says, “That’s that, I suppose. The winner of this mock battle is the Black Eagles House.”

Sothis ceases her tapping and beams at him, at which he rolls his eyes fondly. “I could have trounced you just now, kid, my only concern is for the poor folk who probably spend hours looking after this training forest,” he grumbles at her.

“Whatever you say, old man,” she cooes, as she exchanges high fives with her excited housemates (and a hip-bump with Byleth, whose hands are occupied holding a snoozing Dimitri in place).

He sighs again. His work is certainly cut out for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk if my little writing experiment with mimicking the titular song worked very well given that it's highly dependent on how fast you read the chapter, but oh well, it was fun to write anyway
> 
> also I didn’t feel like restricting myself to ingame magic (for any of the characters), which tbh let’s face it is a bit eh in terms of what ppl can do, so I added the very versatile field of illusion magic to Byleth’s admittedly slightly OP looking arsenal, although we will in a later chapter explore her very real limitations. Linhardt knows about illusion magic because he’s a nerd, but Mercedes didn’t guess instantly because she didn’t do that elective at fodlan's hogwarts school of witchcraft and sorcery. 
> 
> also the rainforest scene was inspired by a particular moment in [Stormborn](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1877970/chapters/4045119), which is a truly excellent Naruto fanfic that I think everyone interested in that fandom should definitely read
> 
> also if you feel cockblocked by the edelgard and dimitri fight and what could have been: don’t be too disappointed, they might have another friendly spar in the future sometime ;))))


	8. Stolen Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tea is introduced into the symphony, and various strategies acquire the quality of motion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> S is for Sothis, and for Smooth-as-hell, and also for Sbottling-up-your-emotions-isn’t-healthy

“I understand,” says Sothis gravely.

“Truly? You are noble at heart, indeed; I suspected as much when I saw you at the Monastery for the first time, but then to have you join the Academy and choose our House only confirmed my suspicions. After all, only a true noble would have known at sight that I, Ferdinand von Aegir, am a tea connoisseur of the finest calibre!”

“Most definitely,” agrees Sothis, who is beginning to run out of synonymous phrases to voice her repeated acquiescence.

“I do believe, though,” continues Ferdinand with a quieter, more ponderous tone, “that I am not the only one at the Officer’s Academy who recognises the nobility of tea. Lorenz Gloucester of the Golden Deer, for instance, seems to be quite fond of it as well, and is known to carry many varieties.”

“ _Really_ ,” says Sothis, with markedly more interest — not that Ferdinand notices.

“Yes, quite,” beams Ferdinand. “Why, just the other day—”

“I must beg your pardon,” interrupts Sothis. “I truly hate to be rude and cut our enlightening conversation short, but I have a prior engagement relating to the harvest of some honey with a particularly persistent beekeeper, and I simply cannot miss it. I hope you understand!” she finishes with a polite bow.

“Yes, yes, of course, far be it for me to keep you from — wait, beekeeper?” he wonders, perplexed, but Sothis has already run off at a dead sprint.

Ferdinand wonders what beekeeper she has fallen afoul of, but shrugs and continues on his way after coming up blank. He will simply have to ask her in their next class.

* * *

“Sothis, this tea is _divine_ ,” sighs Dorothea.

“Thank you, I made it myself!” chirps Sothis enthusiastically.

They sip from their cups in contented silence.

Many minutes later, Dorothea breaks it to say, “As gifted as you turned out to be at strategising, though, I wouldn’t have thought you invited me here to just have some tea. I mean, it’s very flattering if you did, but I somehow don’t think you’re interested in me that way.”

Sothis looks at Dorothea with a smile half-hidden beneath her teacup, and says, “I think you give yourself far too little credit, because you’re plenty interesting.”

Dorothea laughs, though she does flush almost imperceptibly at the praise. “Well now, a tea date _and_ flattery? You must want only the best gossip,” she muses.

“And naturally, I had to get it from the best,” agrees Sothis. “It isn’t quite what you’re imagining, though.”

“Oh?” wonders Dorothea lightly.

“Mm,” hums Sothis in reply. “I plan to bribe everyone in our House with gifts, which includes you, so I thought it would be best to just ask what you like directly. What better source for gossip about Dorothea than the woman herself, after all?”

Dorothea’s cup pauses halfway to her mouth. She stares at Sothis for a long moment before she sets her cup down gently, an unreadable emotion flickering in her eyes.

“How thoughtful of you,” she says quietly, but her face displays a small smile that reaches her eyes for the first time since Sothis has met her.

Sothis smiles back. They share another sip of tea; this time, it is accompanied by an unspoken agreement to shed a layer of pretense in the conversation that follows.

* * *

On her way back from tea, Sothis is eaten by a hedge.

It spits her out onto its other side, where a bubble of sound-suppressing magic shimmers in the air and ensconces entirely the small space between the hedge and the wall behind it. Inside the bubble, and bearing an unusually contemplative expression, sits a blue-haired woman in the black-and-gold uniform of the Officer’s Academy.

Sothis brushes off the twigs and leaves that have entwined themselves into her hair and settles down against the wall, facing Byleth.

For a long while, the sisters sit in a companionable hush; neither of them seems to be in a hurry to break it. The slight distortion of the air from Byleth’s magic paints the warm hue of the slowly setting sun a hazy orange that reflects off their eyes like firelight. The scene feels idyllic, charged with nostalgic energy; Sothis remembers many evenings like this from their nomadic past. On evenings like these, Jeralt would tuck them onto horseback and they would settle against each other’s warmth against a long night’s journey, and often neither would speak a word until long into the next morning.

Byleth was almost never the one to break these silences when they were younger. But like the land they travelled, she, too, has changed; the girl that barely even emoted as a child grew into her words as surely as a spring bloom. Now, the murmurings of those that meet her blue-haired twin express sentiments similar to _what a charming young lady_ , but Sothis remembers when they used to be _what a strange little girl_ and how they used to make her angry that they could not see the person underneath the silence like she could. Her anger has faded with time, though — partly because she does not wish to waste the energy on worthless fools, but mostly because Byleth has never expressed hurt at anything anyone has ever said about her.

Sothis envies her sister for her unflappable nature, sometimes, but above all she is proud of who Byleth has become.

“I confessed my undying love to Lady Rhea,” says Byleth.

Sothis is _mostly_ proud of who Byleth has become.

“I invited her to tea like we discussed, but she refused, so I panicked,” explains Byleth at Sothis’ incredulous stare. “She was very nice about rejecting me, though. And we hugged it out afterwards, so I suppose it all worked out in the end.”

Sothis wonders if she should give a pet name to the particular strain of headache that afflicts her only when Byleth is involved. “ _Are_ you in love with her?” she demands.

“Of course not,” replies Byleth, making a face. “I mean, she’s a nice enough person, but I don’t know her very well, and also _she’s_ _your_ _daughter_.”

Sothis grimaces. “She’s not — nevermind. Why in the world did you lie to her about having feelings for her, then?” she asks.

“It seemed like the simplest excuse to get her to receive a hug,” shrugs Byleth. “I was going to work up to it with a tea party and everything, but she said she was too busy, so I had no other choice.”

“ _That’s_ why you asked me to come up with a good way to talk to her alone? So you could… hug her?” asks Sothis, nonplussed. Byleth shrugs again.

“She seemed sad,” she says simply.

Sothis wonders suddenly if her father has named it. Not the headache, but the peculiar sense of respect and exasperation that Byleth’s unusual brand of empathy always gives her. It is never the same blend of both, either — this time, it actually hits Sothis as neither respect nor exasperation, but instead as a vague pulse of guilt that tears insistently at the fabric of her thoughts.

She sighs moodily, and shifts herself so that she is sitting next to Byleth instead of facing her. Byleth automatically wraps an arm around her, and Sothis rests her head on the taller woman’s shoulder. As much as Sothis hates being short (as she seems cursed to forever remain), this particular source of comfort makes all the jokes worth it.

“She looks so much like me,” admits Sothis in a whisper, after she’s laid still for a while. “Exactly like I imagine myself ten years from now. But I haven’t an ounce of magical talent in my body, Goddess or no, and I remember nothing but growing up with you, so isn’t it just awful if I pretend to be mother to a child I don’t even remember? But I,” the shame that washes over her as she remembers is so powerful that she has to pause and choke back a sob, shutting her eyes against the flood of emotions that wells up, “I was so harsh on her, and angry that she was trying to make me something I don’t want to be, but this morning I had a dream that I woke up one day to find that everyone had forgotten me like I forgot everyone and it hurt my heart so much, and then I woke up and realised that’s probably _exactly_ how she felt when I said I didn’t remember her, so why—”

Sothis doesn’t remember the last time she cried, but she remembers it feeling awfully similar; her eyes burn, and the lump in her throat makes it hard to get another word out. Byleth understands — bless her soul, she always understands — and wraps her other arm around Sothis and squeezes her in a hug so tight it drives the wind out of her.

Neither move for a long moment.

Sothis is the one to pull back, eventually; she wipes her face clean with an arm and gives a watery chuckle when it comes away wet, then sniffles and mumbles, “Thanks.” Byleth pokes her below her ribcage in response, which Sothis makes a token attempt at squirming away from.

“For what it’s worth,” murmurs Byleth thoughtfully, “I think she’s well aware that you know nothing of her. But I don’t think she’s looking for that; by her account, the Sothis that you used to be went to sleep when she was far too young anyway. I just think she never learned to trust anyone else because she was always so sure she would get you back, and, well…” she trails off, looking at Sothis meaningfully.

“When did you become so sensible?” mumbles Sothis back, wistful. Byleth merely sniffs haughtily in response, and says in a snooty tone, “I was born wise.”

The two stare at each other for a moment, then break into laughter. When it dies down, Sothis feels much lighter, and more determined; she wonders if this is what the books refer to when they mean _feeling like yourself_.

“How do you suggest I approach her then, wise one?” she asks.

Byleth tilts her head as if the answer is obvious.

“An invitation to tea it shall be,” sighs Sothis.

Perhaps it is.

* * *

Claude hums a cheerful tune from where he sits perched on the fence that separates the training arena from the rest of the practice grounds.

“Erm, excuse me, Professor,” says Dimitri in a tone that suggests he’s trying very hard to not let his annoyance show. “Is it wise to allow a student from another House to observe our tactics? Especially one as… notorious as him?”

“Wise?” muses Jeralt. “Probably not. Effective, on the other hand… I’d say so.”

“Effective?” echoes Dimitri in confusion. “What might you mean by that?”

“It means, Your Highness,” interjects Claude with a wink, “that the new Professor here is trying to foster some inter-house unity between the Lions and the Deer. And what better way to do it, he’s probably thinking, than have one of the house leaders observe the other during their training session?”

“Hmph,” grunts Jeralt. “A fair assessment, kid. But now that you mention it, I’ve actually just thought of a better way to foster unity.” He winks at Dimitri, and continues, “Why don’t you join Dimitri down here in the arena? Swords only, you’ve seen the drill we’ve been practicing.”

Dimitri brightens instantly and waves enthusiastically at Claude. “Come, Claude, I’ve just been shown this incredible disarming throw by Felix. He took great care to demonstrate it very thoroughly, but I wish to see how it fares on someone of a, um, slipperier stature. You’ll oblige, won’t you?”

Claude tries to imagine Felix, who stands a whole head shorter than Dimitri, throwing Dimitri bodily across the arena. He then substitutes himself for Dimitri and Dimitri for Felix in his mind’s eye — and subsequently thinks faster than he ever has in his life for an excuse.

“Ah-hah-ha, would you imagine that?” laughs Claude nervously. “I’ve just remembered that I promised… Hilda… that… I would take over her shift at the dining hall, today! I do apologise, Your Highness, Professor, but I really must be going. I’ll be sure to pop by some other time to see your incredible disarming throw, though!”

Jeralt smirks at him. “I’ll be sure to coordinate a schedule for the both of you with Professor Hanneman later, then. It’s far too valuable a training opportunity to pass—”

“—clean up your messes any longer, Sylvain!” carries Ingrid’s angered voice from the direction of the doors, and Claude freezes mid-stride. He hears a lower voice say something in reply, and Ingrid continues in a quieter tone, but as suddenly as it quietened, her voice rises again—

“—my sweet granny!” she cries.

Despite being horribly curious, Claude does not quite have a death wish just yet, so he executes a snappy about-face and says to Dimitri, “You know, I just remembered that I took over Hilda’s last shift for her, so she’ll be alright for this one. Heh.”

Jeralt chuckles at him and says, “Glad to know you’ll help after all. I’ll leave you to it while I check up on what’s happening with those two.”

Claude salutes him with a jauntiness he does not quite feel at the moment, and turns to Dimitri just in time to catch a sword thrown in his direction. As he fumbles with the grip of the blade, Jeralt’s voice carries over with a fading, “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t!”

Claude watches in fascination as Dimitri breaks eye contact with him instantly at those words. And while it’s difficult to tell with the distance between them, Claude has a sneaking suspicion the colour on Dimitri’s cheeks isn’t just from exertion, either...

 _How interesting_ , thinks the part of Claude that is the Almyran Prince.

 _No way_ , thinks the rest of Claude, as they assume their sparring stances.

* * *

Professor Hanneman’s office is sparsely decorated by anything except tomes upon dusty tomes of arcane knowledge, the excited rambles of one too many researchers, and an odd contraption on the ground that contains strands of suspiciously uncommon shades of blue and green hair.

Byleth thinks it’s rather adorable of the man to go to such lengths to determine if she has a Crest, although Sothis gives her a deeply concerned look and attempts to look affronted at Professor Hanneman when he turns to them in excitement.

“I thought for sure you would have a Major Crest, what with your incredible magical talent!” he exclaims, after he has fiddled with the machine and managed to steadfastly ignore Sothis’ offended squawks.

“Nope,” replies Byleth cheerily, popping the _p_. “Entirely Crestless talent and hard work, I assure you,” she boasts, buffing her nails against her uniform in pride.

“How utterly remarkable, indeed! And as for your sister,” he says, turning to Sothis. “It is… curious, to say the least, but I cannot actually tell if you have a Crest or not.”

Sothis folds her arms in annoyance. “I could have told you that _without_ you somehow obtaining a sample of my hair,” she grumbles.

The Professor has the good grace to look abashed, and apologises swiftly for overstepping. But it does not seem to dampen his spirits for long, because he continues, “Why, it seems almost as if there is some sort of force that is mysteriously _blocking_ your very magic! But how can that be,” he trails off into a mutter to himself, “if she can still use magic… it must be my analyser… but perhaps if I recalibrate the forward-transform…”

Sothis exchanges a measured glance with Byleth, and then interrupts his rambling hesitantly. “Actually,” she admits, looking rather uncomfortable, “I _can’t_ use magic.”

He pauses instantly, staring at her. “You… can’t? Magical talent is known to skip siblings sometimes, naturally, but… I beg your pardon, but are you sure?”

Sothis scowls, discomfort forgotten. “Of course I’m _sure_ ,” she snaps irritably. “I’ve tried to learn to conjure more than a wick of flame for as long as I can remember, but I’ve never been able to.”

“My apologies for pushing,” he says in a tone that does not match his words, because he sounds excited again. Byleth blinks as he begins to suddenly pace the length of his office, rambling animatedly, “But of course, Crests do not _necessarily_ manifest in the arcane! Why, that was positively narrow-minded of me, I am ashamed to admit… and of course, with the basis signs, we can determine what… hm.”

He stops for a minute, staring at nothing, then the glassy look in his eyes vanishes to be replaced with a hint of steel. “I must do more research,” declares Professor Hanneman in the tones of a man heading to war, and shoos them out of his office.

Byleth rubs her chin in thought when they are outside. “Should we have mentioned that you could probably lift his entire weight with the strength in just your pinky?” she wonders.

Sothis glares at his now closed door. “He can figure it out himself,” she mutters vindictively.

* * *

“La-la-laaa,” sings a voice happily.

“Hm-hm-hmmm,” mimics Byleth, humming the last two notes a tone higher.

Her hum fades away into the warm hush of the greenhouse without a response. Then, abruptly, there is a clatter and the sound of rushing footsteps, and a purple-haired girl rounds the corner around a row of plants to stare at Byleth in horror.

“Good singing voice,” remarks Byleth serenely from where she is sitting on the floor, observing a row of potted red carnations.

Bernadetta pales a little bit, and then insists, “Um, I, I don’t know what you mean by that. Singing? That sounds like something someone not named me might do. I don’t really know why I would ever sing! Or why you would think I would!”

Byleth tilts her head, and then offers, “I like to think it helps the plants grow faster.”

“It does? I suppose that’s why everyone would always tell me I have a green thumb…” muses Bernadetta, denial momentarily forgotten. “I-I mean, um, in the hypothetical situation where I might sing. But I don’t, so they wouldn’t! And didn’t! Ever!”

“But if you did and your plants did grow faster, you would have more time to do other things,” argues Byleth.

Bernadetta stares at her as if Byleth holds the keys to the universe. “Like spend more time alone in my room…” she breathes in wonder. “So you’re saying I should sing more? I-I mean, more than the zero amount of singing I currently do and have ever done?”

Byleth nods at her, happy that her argument was so easily accepted. But Bernadetta frowns back, suddenly suspicious.

“This isn’t a ploy, is it? Is this how you finally carry out your vengeance? By — by tricking me into utter humiliation?!” she accuses suddenly.

Byleth blinks in surprise. “Why would I carry out vengeance on you?” she wonders.

Bernadetta blinks back. “Because I… crashed into you when you arrived here? At the gate?”

“Oh,” says Byleth. “You sort of hugged me as you were passing out, so I thought that was a welcoming tradition of some sort and you just overdid it a little. Wasn’t it?”

Bernadetta works her mouth for a long moment around a reply, but all she manages in the end is a bewildered, “Huh?”

“That’s why I got you this, actually, to thank you,” says Byleth, and digs into the pouch sitting next to her hip.

After a moment of suspenseful rummaging, she pulls out a bright red fish stuffy. It has wide, vacant eyes, accompanied by a large, pink-lipped mouth that completes its vacuous expression. Most of its fins are white, save two bright yellow, three-peaked ones on its back and underbelly.

Bernadetta wells up when Byleth stands and presents it to her.

Byleth winces. The stuffy _is_ quite the ugly specimen by conventional standards, and even though she loves all fish and representations of fish equally, she wonders often what deranged hallucination could have caused a person to imagine and then go as far as to create such a thing as this particular one. She worries if she was mistaken in her choice; perhaps Bernadetta will take offense at the gift and run away from her — again, as she has been doing for the past week.

“It’s beautiful,” cries Bernadetta, cradling it gingerly.

Byleth relaxes. “I’m glad you like it,” she says, beaming. Bernadetta nods feverishly in response.

“I’ve never seen this colour before,” she murmurs in wonder, turning the toy around to peer at it from all angles. “Or at least not on an animal… the closest thing is probably the colour of those carnations I saw Edelgard planting once…” She trails off to continue examining her gift in fascination, but suddenly startles and looks at Byleth.

“Um, thankyousomuchandyou’refartookindbutIcan’tacceptthis!” she exclaims rapidly, and attempts to thrust her gift back at Byleth.

Byleth pushes it back gently at her, and despite having not understood a word and being slightly confused, says calmly, “I can’t take it back now. It’s yours.”

Bernadetta looks to be a mixture of elated and enormously guilty at this. “I’m sorry!” she wails, hugging the fish to her chest, and runs away.

Byleth blinks at her rapidly departing form. Then she turns to look at the row of potted carnations, and considers.

* * *

“Lady Edelgard,” hisses Hubert in frustrated tones. “You must not forget your purpose here.”

Edelgard represses the urge to roll her eyes for the tenth time that day, and replies calmly from where she sits at her desk writing a letter, “I _cannot_ forget, Hubert. They made sure that I would not.”

“Yes, milady,” says Hubert. On most days, that would be the end of it. But Hubert seems more determined today to test her patience than he has been in a while, and he continues.

“That is why it is imperative,” he stresses, “that you cease being so… if I may be blunt, _charmed_ by a pair of bloodthirsty mercenaries that have taken a frankly dangerous interest in you.”

“I have not been charmed by a pair of mercenaries, Hubert,” she protests. It sounds weak even to her own ears, and she hopes he doesn’t catch the emphasis she didn’t quite manage to hide.

“Not by the _pair_ , perhaps… but hardly a blessing, that, since of the two you could have fallen for, you chose the one that resembles our most hated enemy,” he says, aggravated.

Edelgard does roll her eyes at that. “I have not _fallen_ for anyone, Hubert, and I find it a tad insulting that you think a simple gift of carnations could sway me so,” she reprimands.

He stiffens and she hears a rustle, which must mean he is bowing to her. “Apologies, my Lady. I was merely struck by how… insistently the woman chased after you to offer a mere token of appreciation, and how profusely you thanked her,” he says. His tone is sincere but his words are cutting, as they always are.

Edelgard sighs, and sets her quill down. “If you are worried about how _Sothis_ knew they were my favourite flowers, you may cease to be so. I have hardly gone to pains to keep it secret. I _am_ still a person, despite what was done to me, and last I checked people are allowed to have things they enjoy,” she lectures, pausing only to blow at ink on parchment.

“Besides, with all the digging you’ve done on my behalf into their past, I think it’s only fair if one of them found something about me,” she adds, and folds the letter neatly into a smooth envelope.

“If you say so,” he says dubiously. He turns to look out of the thin window in her room, saying nothing further. Edelgard half-smiles to herself, drips candlewax onto the envelope, and presses a stamp into it in a smooth and practiced motion. Hubert does not turn to her even as she scrapes back her chair, grabs the envelope, and goes to stand next to him.

For a while, they both silently observe the thin slice of deep blue sky visible from the window.

“Someday, no children will suffer beneath it anymore,” breathes Edelgard quietly.

“Pardon, milady?” says Hubert, looking askance at her.

“Nevermind,” she sighs, and presses her letter into his hand. He accepts it easily, but she grabs his hand with her other as he retracts it, and looks deeply into his eyes.

“You needn’t fear that anyone will ever replace you, Hubert,” she says gently. “If that is what you worry about with your concern over my newfound friendships — my first and most loyal friend, you needn’t ever fear that at all.”

She watches, amused, as his hand stiffens in her grip and he swallows roughly. “I am not worried about myself, Lady Edelgard. I am worried only about you,” he rasps.

“Then as your sovereign, I command you to worry less about me and more about yourself. I appreciate your concern, as I always do, but I am quite capable of taking care of myself even in matters like these. Unless your worry about me stems from a more… romantic place than you’ve let on to me?” she asks slyly.

Hubert jerks his hand back as if burned, and bows to her again. “You are ever in my heart, my Lady, but I implore that you never utter thoughts of such a nature again,” he pleads.

She laughs. “And I love you, Hubert, so I am glad we are on the same page regarding each other. But if you don’t want me to speak of such things, then you must stop pestering me about who I choose to have tea with or accept flowers from,” she says firmly.

He grimaces and bows to her for a final time. “I shall take my leave, Lady Edelgard,” he says, and walks out of her room as fast as he can manage without appearing to be running.

She chuckles again after he leaves, then unceremoniously throws herself onto her bed. It has been a long and exhausting day, but her mind does not stop churning.

She takes Hubert’s warnings more seriously than she lets on, even to him. But is it so wrong to want to be treated as an equal? Edelgard knows of the bloody path she must walk, and knows there is no room for emotion on it, let alone for someone to walk beside her, but on idyllic days like this…

Her heart thumps, her blood roars, and she _wishes_. She reaches out to her bedside table, where a vase keeps the controversial crimson flowers, and takes a deep breath. The bright fragrance makes her imagination roam easily; a flash of crinkled deep green eyes, a swish of equally verdant hair, the strength of slender fingers wrapped around her own. She wonders what they might feel like, if she—

Edelgard jerks her head away from the flowers with a flushed face and ragged breath. Perhaps she might have wished too hard.

Even so, her spirits are not dampened; she hums lightly to herself as she settles against her pillows to read a book Bernadetta suggested to her. She can likely finish it before she needs to settle in for the night, and Bernadetta will likely appreciate that Edelgard put such stock into her recommendation. _More importantly_ , considers Edelgard, _she will hopefully be less scared of me_.

She smiles at the thought. The brightness of the days she spends in these halls seems almost immutable, and though the back of her mind always warns her about running out of her stolen, precious moments of time, she finds herself not particularly caring. If she must burn the world to forge it anew, she might as well enjoy what little time she has left in it.

But as always, the forbidding darkness of the night brings with it her everlasting nightmare, and the happiness of her days is kept at bay once more by the screams of her lost childhood and haunting visions of spilled blood.

* * *

In an unknown location deep inside a forgotten forest, four wisps of smoke gather.

“The Fell Star lives,” says one, in a voice that resembles nameless creatures of the deep.

“Seek,” it continues, “and destroy.”

“It will be done,” says another that sounds like steel scraping steel, and vanishes in a soundless puff.

Three wisps of smoke remain.

“The Monastery is almost ours,” says one in a guttural tone, like a bog long forgotten.

“I will draw their attention,” says the first voice.

“It is suboptimal. She cannot escape Zahras,” the guttural voice replies.

“I will leave you to your plots, and you will leave me to mine,” remarks the first voice. It cannot truly be said that it is annoyed, for the voices are all devoid of emotion; rather, there is only the potential for the voice to be so.

“Indeed,” agrees the guttural voice, and vanishes as well.

“And you?” says the first voice again.

“Preparing for our dominion,” says the last wisp of smoke, which has not spoken before. It is slighter than the others before it; the cadence strikes less harshly, but suggests in turn a depth of meaning not present in the others.

“Good,” replies the first voice.

The remaining wisps of smoke vanish.

* * *

Hundreds of miles away, Sothis wakes up in a cold sweat and chokes back a panicked scream.

She blinks wildly, trying furiously to recall what her nightmare told her, but it slips from her mind’s eye even as she tries to remember. She settles back down, giving up after she can think of nothing but a sense of deep horror and a gnawing emptiness inside her.

Sleep eludes her for a long time that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> things are a-moving! this is the start of a snowball into the apocalypse, and at least the next... 8 or so chapters (at a guess, since I haven't written them out yet) will be six light years left of "hey wouldn't it be cool if this happened in canon" and therefore much closer to "what in the fresh hell"
> 
> and yes, that was a magikarp stuffy. do magikarp exist in fodlan? do pokemon? how did Byleth get her hands on one if she isn't a dimensional traveller and secretly best friends with the magikarp salesman? _is_ Byleth a dimensional traveller and secretly best friends with the magikarp salesman? the author will retain a carefully cultivated mysterious vibe by refusing to answer


	9. Red Sands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Events spiral into a storm, and blood darkens the sand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: graphic violence, death

“We barely averted having her send all of us into a possible battle,” frowns Sothis. “Deterring bandits may be necessary, but sending children to execute them… I doubt I would have been able to sleep soundly at night after witnessing a thing like that.”

“Children?” repeats an unfamiliar voice. “You flatter yourself.”

Sothis and Byleth turn as one to look at the intruder into their conversation, and meet the dark purple eyes of an indigo-haired woman.

She appears to be young, dressed in simple teal leathers that frame a lean figure, but she carries herself with the understated grace of a seasoned warrior. Every glance of hers is sharply assessing, and with every step she wastes no movement. Her ensemble only punctuates her silently menacing aura; the shape of a quiver and a smooth well-used wooden bow jut out above her shoulder, positioned precisely to aid in a quicker draw.

“Shamir,” introduces the assassin curtly, snapping her hand in a brief salutary wave. “Bow Knight.”

“Sothis,” replies Sothis with a measuring glance, “but I suppose you already knew that.”

“Byleth,” adds Byleth. “It’s always nice to meet a fellow connoisseur of the mercenary arts.”

“Charmed,” says Shamir drolly. “I’ve been tasked to get your class in and out of the Canyon safely while you track down those bandits.”

“I don’t suppose you’re one of the few Knights around here with a robust ethical code that perchance precludes training students to be executioners?” questions Sothis, wry. Byleth snorts.

“From where I’m standing, you seem about the same age as the children you refer to,” retorts Shamir. “But I’ll try to do what I can to keep their pretty hands unstained.”

Sothis exchanges a glance with Byleth, then shrugs. “As long as Rhea’s report on the movement of the bandits was correct, we shouldn’t encounter any of them in the Red Canyon anyway. But leaderless brigands like these have been known to be unpredictable, and if they’re forced into a fight where they see no way out…” she says, trailing off meaningfully.

“Hm,” muses Shamir. “Nothing to lose. I see what you mean.”

“It’s good to know that we’ll have the support of an expertly trained Knight of Seiros to help us in case things go wrong, though,” chirps Byleth brightly.

“You’re too kind,” says Shamir amusedly. “We’ll have a few more—”

“Shamir!” interrupts a high-pitched voice. “You’re back!”

Shamir barely turns around in time where they stand in the hallway outside the cathedral, before she gets ambushed by a Cyril-shaped blur. He hugs her as high as he can reach, but breaks off before she can react, and starts to ramble excitedly about a bow and curved shots. Shamir interrupts him with a well-placed ruffle of his head, at which his eyes go wide.

“Show me what you’ve learned, then,” she says calmly.

He nods rapidly, looking like an adorably impatient puppy, and pulls at one of her arms. Shamir turns back to Sothis and Byleth with a faintly apologetic smile and a wave goodbye before she lets him drag her away.

“So she’s who the kid was gushing about,” muses Byleth after they’ve left. “Heh. No wonder she called us children.”

* * *

“I wish I was back in my room,” breathes Bernadetta as quietly as she can, shivering. But her luck is still as it has always been, so every single one of her classmates hears her whine.

“You and me both, Bern,” mutters Dorothea. “Goddess, it’s so ridiculously _cold_ out here.”

“Yeah!” agrees Caspar. Even his exclamation doesn’t quite have the same volume it usually does.

Bernadetta blinks at the unexpected show of support from the most outgoing of the Black Eagles. It must mean something, she thinks, but her usually rapidly whirling mind is operating at only a fraction of its usual tempo so she can’t even begin to guess what that might be. The cold spreads beyond her limbs, and the fogginess of her breath makes it feel like it has penetrated into her brain; she feels so sluggish she can barely muster the energy to be anxious.

She both loves and hates the feeling.

Ahead of where Bernadetta walks with her housemates, Sothis surveys the landscape and quietly chats with Edelgard and Professor Manuela. For all Bernadetta can see, though, they have nothing to look at except a vast, barren canyon — the part of her that hadn’t balked in sheer existential terror at the prospect of going on a tracking mission had been excited, initially, to see the wildlife that would surely have found a way to prosper in a desert like this. But that part is left disappointed, too; for nothing grows here, nothing survives here, nothing lives here.

It is as if the crimson sands of this place have been so thoroughly rinsed of their potential to hold life that no amount of rain or magically enhanced fertiliser can revive them. And every so often, their class passes by ruins of what look like buildings from an ancient time… Bernadetta’s heart quakes when she dares to imagine what atrocity could have struck those who inhabited them so thoroughly that the very land would scream a millennium-long song of pain.

She resolves very quickly to think of other things, and perhaps against her better judgement, skips closer to the shattered remains of a stone column to study it instead.

The column must have been gargantuan when it still stood; even shattered into pieces as it is, Bernadetta could easily hide underneath any of the slabs that have broken off it. It stands as the only structure on the particular cliff the Black Eagles are currently traversing, which seems ridiculous to imagine because Professor Manuela is only on the other side of the ruins of the pillar where she gestures and speaks animatedly to Edelgard and Sothis, and yet Bernadetta cannot hear a single word that is being exchanged despite the awful stillness of the canyon.

She wonders what kind of vast population this civilisation must have housed to warrant such a massive structure.

It seems she is the not only one that wonders, because the terrifying Bow Knight that accompanies them is busy stooping low to the ground near one of the broken slabs of the pillar that stands further upright. Bernadetta wonders if it’s a good sign that she can probably guess why; the block of stone in question creates a perfectly serviceable shelter for a more reasonable population… such as a group of ragtag bandits.

That they are hunting.

Bernadetta darts a nervous glance at Petra, and wonders if she should ask the other girl to share her secrets for rabbit-hunting. Petra terrifies her on the best of days, but Bernadetta has also seen her track down deer to eat on training exercises with such precision that she doubts the huntress would have much trouble with a pack of bandits, either.

“They were here,” announces Shamir to the group. “More than once, it seems,” she adds in a quieter voice, frowning. Byleth breaks off from where she stands talking quietly to Linhardt, and joins the group gathering around Shamir. Next to her, Dorothea and Petra do the same, and Caspar stops trying to pester both Hubert and Ferdinand into letting him practice his battle roars. The three Knights of Seiros that have accompanied them as safeguards, too, abandon their search and hurry to Shamir’s side.

“Well then, class,” says Professor Manuela, attempting to rub her hands to imbue them with some sense of warmth. Bernadetta has never seen their normally rather… risqué Professor bundle up so warmly, even on the rare frigid day that strikes Garreg Mach, but it seems that the Professor understands the value of practicality and has foregone her usual dress for a thick layer of fur that matches what their entire class wears. Not that it seems to help anyone much, because everyone save Sothis, Edelgard, and Byleth is shivering and rubbing their arms intermittently.

Bernadetta wonders if her newfound sluggishness will allow her to momentarily overcome her usual nervousness enough to ask what keeps them so warm, but the prospect of going near Edelgard terrifies her even when the woman isn’t armed with a wicked sharp axe — and when she is, Bernadetta’s heart all but demands that she pick the corner furthest from her house leader.

“The tracks here suggest that our wayward bandits used this cliffside as some sort of wayside shelter, given that we can see evidence for _two_ hastily-doused campfires in very close proximity here. Does anyone know what steps we might take to determine which direction they went most recently in?” asks the Professor. “Yes, Petra?”

“N-north of here,” stammers Petra, her teeth chattering audibly. “The sands are having been swept along t-that path more visibly, meaning those tracks are being more young.”

Bernadetta frowns, remembering that Brigid is known to have a rather warm, tropical climate — it seems no wonder that Petra is taking the cold the hardest out of all of them, even bundled up as she is.

In a flash of unanticipated courage, she considers sharing her cloak with the other girl, but before her mind can begin to balk at the concept of willingly initiating a conversation, Dorothea silently offers Petra hers instead. Bernadetta breathes an internal sigh of relief and manages to shove down the spike of guilt that shoots up her spine as Petra gives Dorothea a grateful look and sinks into the proffered warmth.

“Quite right!” exclaims Professor Manuela. “Our escort Knight in charge has come to the same conclusion, which you will find her detailing in her missive back to—”

She is interrupted by a bloodcurdling howl that sounds far too terrifying to be human, followed by a shrill scream that sounds far too human to not be terrifying.

Bernadetta can’t even spare the energy to feel vindicated by her paranoia when Shamir looks up sharply from the note she is scribbling, passes it to one of the Knights who hastily ties it to a messenger pigeon, and says grimly, “Contact.”

It feels like her throat is constricting around her, like that time Father caught her with — _nonononono, Bernie,_ _stop thinking about that_ — and she feels her breath shorten. But the usual spike of paralysing fear that accompanies her panic attacks doesn’t come and hardly a minute later, Bernadetta finds herself standing next to Byleth with her bow drawn and an arrow ready to be nocked in her other hand.

Nobody seems to notice her unusual readiness — except Byleth, who gives her a soft smile and says, “Well done,” in a soft murmur that barely carries to her ears in the sudden hubbub. Bernadetta flushes with pride, even though her heart is still hammering so fast she can barely hear herself think.

Whatever made the howl is drawing closer, because Bernadetta can hear accelerating rhythmic thumps that grow ever louder, and every few moments the shrill scream returns with a noisier vengeance.

“Positions!” commands Sothis, suddenly. She only glances back with a brief nod of approval at seeing that the Black Eagles have already arranged themselves without needing the prompt; Professor Manuela had made sure to stress upon them the importance of following someone with actual battle experience after the Black Eagles’ decisive victory at the mock battle, and Sothis had cheerily taken over the tactical reigns of their class with not even a word of complaint from either Edelgard _or_ Hubert.

 _The first line of offense_ , Sothis had explained in class, pointing to a crudely drawn facsimile of a tiled board, _consists of the warriors._ She’d pointed to herself, then Edelgard, then Caspar — the very same that currently stand in a vaguely arrowhead-like formation at the forefront of their class, with Edelgard at the centre. _They defend, and are defended by, the mages and archers,_ Sothis had then said, and so Bernadetta stands behind the front line in tandem with Byleth, Dorothea, and Hubert. _The Healers are the backup and the saving grace, and so they must both be protected by, and protect the other units,_ so Professor Manuela and Linhardt stand sandwiched between the two lines, waiting avidly for the assault.

Ferdinand had been quite insulted by being left out, but Sothis had only grinned at him and explained that he and Petra had the most integral roles of all: _the mobile support._ For now, he stands with lance extended behind Caspar, while Petra quietly waits with her sword held in a loosely confident stance behind Edelgard. Shamir accompanies her, even though she holds a bow; Bernadetta supposes that the woman is scary enough that nobody would want to attack her head on anyway.

For the moment, though, the formation of the Eagles stands quite a few paces behind the three silver-armoured Knights of Seiros — even in the hazy afternoon sun that shines on the Red Canyon, their resplendence fills Bernadetta with hope that they can easily dispatch whatever manner of threat is loping towards them.

The source of the noise finally reveals itself — for a moment, less spectacularly than Bernadetta had feared. It is a woman missing half her armor, flailing a sword that she barely avoids impaling herself on as she stumbles across the rocky terrain of the cliffside. She doesn’t appear to be bleeding, from what Bernadetta can see, but the sheer terror in her stance is like a beacon to Bernadetta even from a distance, so she tenses up in readiness anyway — then tries her best to quell the resulting shakiness in her fingers.

The woman sees the Knights of Seiros and freezes only for an instant before she continues running towards them. She is clearly a bandit, judging by the make of her remaining armour, and the Knights know it too; they look at each other uneasily before holding firm in their stances with weapons held aloft. For a long moment, all is still except the fumbling noise of the bandit running straight at the Knights.

She makes it halfway to them before a colossal demonic shape lumbers up the slope behind her, leaps to where she is in one terrifying lunge, and tears her throat out in a dizzyingly fast snap of its teeth.

The arrow drops from Bernadetta’s numb fingers in shock.

For another long moment, nothing moves except the demon, which takes its time swallowing its pitiful morsel. It moves to take another bite of the now-limp bandit, then freezes when it catches sight of the force arrayed before it.

Bernadetta can see, with a razor-sharp clarity she wishes she never had, that the demon is actually an impossibly huge wolf, with yellowed teeth as large as her arms, and bloodshot eyes that dart rapidly between the humans gathered before it. Its mottled black fur is so dark that it absorbs the light of the sun; the only texture visible on its body is the shape of its incredibly sharp-looking claws and patches of what Bernadetta fears is dried blood on its pelt.

For a final moment, the cliffside is still.

Then apocalypse breaks loose.

The demonic wolf leaps again with its startling fury at the Knights, who barely brace for the snapping of teeth in time. Sothis commands with a roar, “Archers!” so Bernadetta scrambles for the arrow she dropped, and nocks it with shaking fingers. When she looks back up, the wolf has already tossed one of the Knights around like a ragdoll and thrown him in a heap next to a pile of rocks, and is in the process of gnawing the armour off of another.

The third Knight bravely stands her ground and thrusts her massive blade into the demon’s leg — but the cold fury of steel does not even give it pause as it continues thrashing with its horrifying fangs screeching against the armor of the other Knight. It seems to grow tired as Shamir peppers its side with arrows at a blinding speed, however, and eventually tosses the Knight caught in its grip into the remaining one. They clang together in a deafening cacophony that makes Bernadetta’s first shot go wide and barely graze the demon’s ear. But it notices her miss more than it has Shamir’s hits, and fixes its fiendish stare squarely on hers.

Bernadetta second shot whizzes straight through its beady eye with a wet _squelch_.

Sothis pauses for only half a moment before she jogs over to it cautiously, and thrusts her sword through its skull. The beast twitches slightly, making her tense in readiness, but then it emits a short, wet gurgle before lapsing into stillness.

Everyone seems content to stare in mute shock at its fallen mass, trying to process what happened; save the two injured Knights, one of whom groans in pain. Professor Manuela rushes to them with a glowing blue hand, followed by Linhardt, but Byleth walks instead in the direction of the Knight who had taken the brunt of the demon’s initial attack — who now lies unmoving where he was thrown.

She kneels next to his head and presses her fingers to his neck; they come away slick with blood. Bernadetta sees Byleth close her eyes briefly and grimace slightly, before she stands up and silently shakes her head at Shamir’s inquiring glance.

Bernadetta feels rather like she should have thrown up long ago, but somehow, she thinks her mind’s lifelong anguish must have inured her to the cathartic effects of nausea; while her stomach feels somewhat unsteady, she cannot even feel the telltale bile traveling up her throat. This does not stop her from envying Linhardt, who does spill the contents of his stomach unceremoniously after witnessing the gory wounds of the Knight he is attending to. Caspar jogs over to him to hold his hair back while he retches all over the sandy ground. Even Dorothea, standing nearby, looks rather green in the face. Bernadetta tries not to notice how Hubert might look, especially since he has moved with his frightening shadow-like speed to Edelgard’s vicinity.

“You did good,” says a voice. The shock of adrenaline hasn’t quite worn off, so Bernadetta whirls and almost stabs her assailant in the throat with a hastily grabbed arrow before she registers the words, and is stopped only by the woman in question catching her hand with a look of surprise.

“Sorry,” says Shamir with a sheepish look that looks incredibly out-of-place on her. “Didn’t mean to startle you. But good thinking, finding its weak spot like that and exploiting it. You’ve got the makings of a fine archer already.”

Bernadetta doesn’t quite have the heart to tell the woman that she has no idea how she managed to kill a beast that slew a Knight of Seiros and horribly injured another, and moreover, that she has absolutely no intention of trying it again.

Instead, she says, “S-sorry! I-I’m, uh, really not very good at this, ahahaha, butthankyoufor—”

The reverberating howl of another demonic beast, much closer than the one she felled had initially sounded, cuts her off very effectively.

She turns around slowly, in the direction behind her that the howl sounded from — and freezes in abject terror when she comes face to face with two of the demon beasts.

“Get down!” roars Byleth, and Bernadetta barely has the chance to register the shout before Shamir tackles her hard, and her vision goes white. The fall knocks the wind out of her, but as soon as she gasps a short breath Bernadetta realises the flash in her vision hadn’t been because she was tackled, but more because a thick bolt of lightning had cloven through the air above her and _melted_ one half of one of the demon wolves in a thunderous explosion.

The other wolf is briefly staggered by its proximity to its fallen companion, but shakes it off quickly and takes a running leap at Byleth that makes her next bolt of lightning miss. It advances at a pace so terrifying all Bernadetta can do is to keep track of where it is moving, so she doesn’t see the lance thrown at the wolf until it pierces its flank. It penetrates far less deeply than she would have expected, though, given the force with which it vibrates as it sinks into the wolf’s flesh.

Still, the lance slows its momentum significantly; enough so that Petra, who moves with none of her previous hesitation of cold enveloping her, can duck low and scramble underneath the beast. Once she is below it, she runs and draws a jagged line with her blade from the wolf’s throat to its stomach, then gives it a mighty heave and throws it onto its side, where its intestines spill out onto the ground in a bloody heap. It still thrashes at Petra, narrowly missing her head with a swipe of its claws, but before she can begin to retaliate an inky mote of pure darkness smacks the beast’s head and splatters its brains onto the ground behind it.

Bernadetta knows without looking that the huff of satisfaction ringing through the silence can only be Hubert’s.

Petra settles onto the ground with a thump, curses fluently in a language Bernadetta has never heard, then turns to Edelgard and asks in outrage, “What manner of curses are the sorcerers of Fódlan having to be making something like… like this?!”

Edelgard replies with a grim look that Bernadetta thinks is worse than any actual answer could have been.

* * *

Professor Manuela makes sure to arrange the burial of the slain Knight on the cliffside as thoroughly as they can under the circumstances.

The Knight’s compatriots give his grave a last salute of respect and a heartfelt prayer to the Goddess, then mark his final resting place with his bloodstained blade for a headstone. The image evokes a bittersweet sense of nostalgia in Sothis, who has seen her father do the same for a good number of mercenaries over the years.

“Our former profession wasn’t exactly conducive to living long lives,” remarks Byleth quietly from her side, as if reading her mind.

Tiny pinpricks of rain accentuate the entire affair and bathe it in a haze of melancholy. The already-misty late afternoon sunlight has all but given way to the darkness of storm clouds that threaten to release their cargo in a much heavier fashion, so the group quickly travels down the rocky cliff slopes and seeks shelter at the base of the canyon.

They find it in a small, naturally formed cave-like indentation in the base of a cliff, just as the rain begins thundering down in earnest. The two Knights, who seem to have mostly recovered from their ordeal, industriously set up a portable campfire, and Caspar enthusiastically roasts the frozen game from their icebox and hands out skewers of meat and vegetables to everyone. Sothis gratefully accepts one, and eyes her class as she eats.

Edelgard, Hubert, and Petra eat mechanically — they waste no time speaking, and seem to endeavour to eat only for the sake of nourishment. The rest of the Black Eagles are a case of extremes; on one, Caspar and Ferdinand both seem to enjoy their food, and trade stories in low tones with the Knights about their profession, and their fallen comrade. Shamir chimes in with her own tales regarding him, too, in her strangely charming brusque manner.

(His name, Sothis learns, was Natael. He had a talent for playing the harp, and he owed the merchant Anna a hundred gold for a bouquet of forget-me-nots he had purchased to gift to his lady love.

Sothis’ lips, leaden with guilt, soundlessly trace the name to burn it into her mind.)

On the other extreme, Dorothea and Linhardt sit quietly picking at their food, some distance away from the fire. Professor Manuela sits with them, clearly attempting to engage them in some sort of distracting conversation; it is a testament to her skill as a teacher that her efforts bear fruit, and both her students eventually finish their skewers. Dorothea even goes back for seconds.

Sothis frowns, not seeing Bernadetta’s customary shock of purple hair amongst the group. Then again, it is always an exercise to find the mousy girl — at present, Sothis spots her in the far corner of the cave, almost completely obscured by a large rock. Byleth leans against the other side of the rock, chatting cheerily about everything and nothing. Sothis feels a familiar warm appreciation when she hears the low, thoughtful murmur of Bernadetta respond to Byleth’s inane stories.

The rain has still not let up by the time everyone finishes their meals, and it seems to fall even harder when Shamir leans against the cave entrance to check, so she grimaces and tells everyone that they will have to hunker down for the night. The fight and the journey have exhausted everyone, so they settle down without a word of complaint in messily arranged bedrolls.

“I’ll take the watch,” volunteers Sothis before anyone asks.

Shamir eyes her contemplatively — Sothis meets her gaze with defiance in her eyes, ready to rebuke a possible challenge — but then relents wordlessly and nods in agreement. She waves her customary curt salute at Sothis before she settles down against the far wall of the cave, not bothering with a sleeping bag.

Byleth passes by Sothis on her way to find a suitable spot to sleep, and pokes her in the shoulder in a gesture they have shared since they were children. Sothis smiles involuntarily, and manages to swipe at her sister’s feet with an outstretched leg before Byleth scrambles out of reach. Sothis gets up, afterwards, and takes up a post at the mouth of the cave; she chooses to lean against a rock, one hidden from outside view but one that she is able to peek over without fuss.

For what feels like long hours after everyone has settled down to sleep, the only sound around her is of furious rain pelting the canyon. She fixes her eyes on the roof of their shelter, and loses herself to her thoughts and the music of the storm. But during her long, uninterrupted watch, Sothis occasionally hears sounds that do not belong to the downpour.

A troubled murmur.

The unrelenting sound of rain.

A sharp, shuddering gasp.

The unrelenting sound of rain.

Muffled footsteps, slowly advancing.

The unrelenting sound of rain.

A soft rustle of clothing.

The unrelenting sound of rain.

“Can’t sleep?” asks Sothis quietly, not taking her eyes from the ceiling.

“I never can,” admits Edelgard ruefully.

Sothis drops her gaze back down in front of her. Her house leader sits close by, leaning against the wall Sothis’ hiding place is situated next to. She hasn’t bothered to rid herself of the dagger she always wears, Sothis notes, and her usually neat silvery hair is unkempt and flies about her face in wild, untamed whirls.

It would almost be an adorable sight if Edelgard’s eyes weren’t red and puffy, and if her features weren’t twisted into a bitter, pained grimace.

“Bad dreams,” says Sothis softly, not phrasing it as a question.

Edelgard meets her eyes for a brief moment — Sothis catches only a brief glimpse of something haunted lurking behind her gaze — then looks away and says simply, “Yes.”

Sothis stares at Edelgard. In the moonlit night, there is a stark vulnerability to her that Sothis has never seen in the light of day before. It makes Edelgard seem like an oddly dramatic figure, staring straight ahead with clenched fists and hooded eyes; but beyond that, Sothis thinks she looks almost… lonely.

“I’ve had them since I was a child,” confesses Edelgard after a long while. She brings her gloved hands to her lap and stares daggers at them. “Stupid, pointless dreams that I can’t control… it’s terribly frustrating.”

“Anything I can help with?” asks Sothis carefully, because Edelgard’s entire posture screams a cry for help.

“They’re worthless dreams from my past. Talking about them won’t change a thing,” replies Edelgard with her words, but with her eyes she might as well have lamented, _I wouldn’t want to burden you._

“You won’t,” says Sothis. Edelgard looks up at her with slightly widened eyes. “Burden me, I mean,” she clarifies, in case Edelgard had been thinking of something else after all.

But Edelgard flushes slightly and looks away, confirming her supposition. “I had a feeling you’d say that,” she says, with a hollow smile. “I — I suppose I could try. But only if you swear not to tell a soul,” she adds quietly with narrowed eyes.

Sothis mimes zipping her lips shut, and watches Edelgard with rapt fascination.

“I appreciate it,” breathes Edelgard. She darts a nervous glance behind her at their sleeping classmates, then shifts closer to Sothis.

“I dream of death in darkness,” begins Edelgard in a whisper, and swallows past nothing, twice, before she continues. “My older brothers. Paralysed and helpless. My older sisters. Crying to the Goddess for help they never received. My youngest siblings. Babbling words without meaning. We died slowly in those dungeons, left wanting for even the faintest glimmer of light.

“I had ten siblings once. Eight older and two younger. A large family by any account; but here I am, the sole heir to the throne. Can you guess why? Each one of them died; crippled or mindless or diseased. I was the only one left.”

Sothis stares at her in mute horror. _That’s awful_ , she wants to say, but it seems hardly enough against the weight of such a tragedy; the words stick to her throat and she can only listen soundlessly to Edelgard’s nightmare.

“It kept getting worse until it couldn’t,” rasps Edelgard after a pause. “I suppose the nightmares are my reminder to never forget. To never allow such terrible things to happen to anyone again. I’m the only one who—” her voice breaks, “who can carry the weight of the Adrestian Empire. The future of the Empire… of everything, depends on me.”

The sounds of the downpour are the only thing that echo in the cavern for minutes after, as Sothis can do nothing but stare helplessly at Edelgard and replay her words in her mind, over and over again. _I was the only one left_ , she had said, and a chasm of anger and suffering had accompanied her whisper.

“Hm,” muses Edelgard after a while, suddenly blank-faced. “I shared more than I intended to. I suppose there’s something in the air tonight,” she jokes flatly. “Please, forget I said anything. Good—”

Her attempt to stand back up and walk away is interrupted by a lunge from Sothis, who does her best to smoosh the slightly shorter woman into the tightest hug she can manage. Edelgard sputters into her shoulder for a moment, caught off-guard; for a fraught moment, Sothis fears she has overstepped greatly when Edelgard remains stiff and unrelenting against her attempt at comfort.

But she does not pull away, even as Sothis settles them both into as comfortable a position as she can manage. Minute after minute, Sothis feels Edelgard’s shoulders relax into her touch — after a while, she hesitantly wraps her arms around Sothis’ back. Edelgard does not say a word, throughout; but eventually she raises her head to stare at the dampness on Sothis’ shoulder pad, then wipes a mystified hand at her own face.

“W-when did I…?” breathes Edelgard in surprise. She scrubs at her face again; more tears come away. She looks at her wet, gloved hand, and then at Sothis, and the frightened expression on her face shatters Sothis’ heart all over again.

“Why can’t I stop crying?” she asks in a plaintive whisper, even as her shoulders quake silently. “What’s wrong with me?”

Sothis only shakes her head and pulls Edelgard as close to her as she can. The white-haired woman works her way through silent sobs for what feels like an hour, as Sothis finally manages to unstick her tongue and murmurs whatever meagre comforts she can muster into Edelgard’s hair.

At some point, Edelgard stops crying and falls asleep as she is, trembling in Sothis’ firm grip. As carefully as she can, Sothis eases herself back into her previous post, tucks Edelgard into her cloak, wraps her arms around the smaller woman, and settles in to await the sun’s rise.

Edelgard’s older sisters had cried to a Goddess for help that they never received.

The guilt does not leave Sothis’ thoughts for a very long time afterwards.

* * *

The Black Eagles rise and set out before even the sun does, and, miraculously, encounter no other demonic wolf-beasts in the Canyon.

Byleth had theorised that since they _were_ wolves, however mutilated, they might be pack animals that wouldn’t attack again after being thoroughly destroyed once. Bernadetta promises herself that she will pray to the Goddess that she has never worshipped in her life before if Byleth turns out to be right, and she resolves also to ask Petra about _her_ gods and goddesses and pray to them, too, just in case any of them were responsible for getting them out alive.

She considers asking Shamir about her chosen beings of worship, too, when the bandit tracks they encounter on their way out get deeper and fresher. The beasts were scary, and the adrenaline of fighting them made her more jittery than her anxiety has ever done, but at least they were mindless and she could justify thinking about them as _just another target_.

But bandits? Real, living humans? Bernadetta’s mind plays back the memory of her arrow embedding itself into the demonic wolf’s eye then replaces the demonic wolf with a featureless human enemy, and she has to choke back a whimper.

Her paranoia is having a field day today, too, now that they are in warmer climes and her mind is accelerating through increasingly ill-fated scenarios with its usual speed again. She breathes a sigh of relief when the red sands slowly change to a duller brown, and then give way entirely to dark soil and green grass. Remire Village should not be so far away, now, and the thought of going to a place that isn’t another forsaken cliff even if it will be full of _people_ makes Bernadetta almost slump bonelessly to the ground in joy.

But the world does not intend to let her enjoy her moment of relief for long, it seems, because Byleth makes a concerned noise from next to her, and ahead of her, Shamir pauses to study the tracks they are following. Bernadetta, in a fit of morbid curiosity, walks up to where she is, and looks at the tracks for herself, wondering if she can spot what has concerned the Knight.

She sees it almost immediately. Pressed into the soft grass are shallow human footprints, far apart as if made by someone sprinting — and between them is imprint of a great paw, in which a pool of fresh blood is gathered.

“It was raining as late as this morning,” says Shamir. “We need to hurry.”

Bernadetta hopes her mind is just being its usual overactive self, but it seems that her insistent nightmares about paranoia not _really_ being paranoia if they really are out to get her are beginning to strike true. She runs to the bend on the road, where Remire should be visible from—

—and sees a cloud of smoke above the village, accompanied by distant, familiar howls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rating change! the tone of the story grows darker from here on out, although that doesn't necessarily mean a reduction in fluff (there's probably going to be more fluff to balance out the bad vibes, in all honesty), but it does mean everything gets more intense. also going to start including content warnings for chapters where i think it is necessary, as seen the start of this chapter.
> 
> bernadetta missing her first attack and critting on the second is in fact based on a true story. 
> 
> and yes, i stole most of the edeleth c support for [insert ship name], but can you really blame me when it's literally like the best support in the game
> 
> and also, apologies for the cliffy, but in my defense... this is quite mild compared to some upcoming ones :)


	10. Tempest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The storm rains blood — but can love still bloom, even on the battlefield?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> preemptive apology because updates might be a little slower (~1 per week instead of ~2 per week) from now on because I have gotten a fair bit busier for the next wee while — but we have somewhat increased chapter lengths on average for this part of the story, so hopefully that cancels out
> 
> on with the show! cw: graphic violence, death

“Yikes,” says Claude, looking up at the sky, which had grown lighter this morning but is now steadily darkening again.

Ingrid wishes, not for the first time, that she could go back in time and throttle whoever taught him the word.

Dimitri blinks at Claude and says in a much more polite manner than Ingrid would have, “I have never heard anyone use that word other than yourself, Claude. Is it common to say in the Alliance?”

“…yeah, sure, Your Highness, let’s go with that,” says Claude, looking slightly shifty for some reason.

Ingrid tunes out of their conversation and wishes that Professor Jeralt had come with their detachment, but the man seemed strangely agreeable to leaving the duo of Claude and Dimitri to lead herself, Felix, Sylvain, Ignatz, and Mercedes into battle. She understands his reason to split the Lions and Deer into three separate detachments, given that they are too unruly to manage in two groups when speed is of the essence, but she wants dearly to have been in the detachment with either him or Professor Hanneman.

She grumbles quietly to herself. At least she’s stuck with Sylvain, so she can preemptively keep him from getting into his usual altercations instead of having to apologise on his behalf later.

“Uh… I don’t mean to interrupt your banter, but what in the world…?” says the man in question in a slow, worried voice that is so unlike him that everyone pauses to stare — first at him, and then at where he points.

The corpse of the largest beast Ingrid has ever seen lies impaled and mangled on the side of the beaten path, bleeding from several incisions and arrow-wounds. Its grotesque and demonic face, though clearly wolf-like, is almost battered beyond recognition, riddled as it is with slashes and furrows that tell of an arduously fought battle. Beside it lies another beast, no smaller, but injured far less — except for a massive claymore branded with the insignia of Seiros stuck into its skull.

“We… we’re on the road to Remire Village still, aren’t we?” asks Ignatz nervously. “We didn’t take a wrong turn somewhere?”

“I don’t think so,” replies Mercedes, who has ridden ahead of their group slightly. “But I do think we might need to hurry.”

Ingrid looks to where she points, and sees the barely visible cloud of smoke above the burning village. As if in answer to her thoughts, the sky above her flashes ominously, and the oppressive darkness of the clouds that have been gathered for a day threatens to press them in.

“Yikes,” says Claude again, and then spurs their horses onward in a rush.

* * *

Caspar barely notices as he crushes the bandit’s ribs with his gauntlets, and turns again to look for Linhardt.

The thick, cloying smoke makes it difficult to see, though, and he has to take several steps away from the blaze surrounding the watermill before he can spot Linhardt’s shock of green. Or what he thinks is his shock of green, but Caspar realises the figure is far too short to be Linhardt.

“Have you seen Linhardt?!” yells Caspar at Sothis.

“I’m right next to you,” grimaces Sothis, holding an offended ear with her off-hand. “And no,” she adds, turning to survey the inferno ahead of them with a critical eye, “I haven’t.”

“Huh,” replies Caspar, and scratches his head as he follows her gaze. Sothis blinks suddenly, and looks back at Caspar with a scowl.

“I did say you were to be paired up with him and to _not_ abandon your partner, didn’t I?” she demands. “What exactly made you think it was a good idea to leave him on his own?

“I didn’t, and nothing!” defends Caspar. “He was hiding in an abandoned shop while I fought off a bandit and then when I looked back, he wasn’t there anymore,” he says dejectedly. “But nothing was broken in there so I don’t think he’s hurt,” adds Caspar hastily.

“And we wish to keep it that way, so you would be best to find him,” replies Sothis flatly. “I would join you, but…” she trails off, looking at the fire, and grimaces again.

“Whaddaya suppose did that?” wonders Caspar.

“Given the overwhelming stench of burning fur and flesh? I suspect some of our demonic assailants might have been hungry for grain, and the bandits we were chasing saw an opportunity,” she deduces with a sigh.

“Huh. I don’t envy you trying to put it out,” remarks Caspar. “But thanks again!” he adds before she can say anything else, and runs away with a hasty wave.

He doesn’t quite know how the fire, even though it must only have been set to the watermill, has spread through the streets near it. Remire’s well-worn, gleaming pavement is blackened with soot, and it sticks to the back of Caspar’s throat sickeningly. He ignores it steadfastly as he does the throbbing in his arm, and yells out for Linhardt anyway.

Nothing answers back except the howl of the wind and the dangerously loud crackling of the firestorm around them.

He curses in frustration, speeding down a random alleyway — and runs into a group of three villagers, huddled together, with one of them brandishing a rake at him. He blinks.

“Put that down before you hurt yourself,” he demands. And then: “Have you seen a tall guy with kinda long green hair? That looked like he was gonna pass out?”

Three bewildered faces stare at him until eventually the one with the rake shakes her head no. He growls in frustration, then remembers that he was taught to be polite so he shouts a thanks at them with a jauntiness he does not feel, and races away again.

Linhardt had hardly been doing well ever since he’d helped Heal those Knights in the canyon yesterday — he can’t imagine what his friend must be feeling like now, lost inside the maze of smoke and having to fight those demons _and_ bandits out to kill everyone at the same time.

He barely registers a bandit yelling hoarsely at him and charging, and entirely subconsciously sweeps his leg and shatters the attacking woman’s sternum with a gauntleted punch. Linhardt had come up with that tactic after his promise to train with Caspar, all that time ago after they’d finally managed to get the books from the restricted area of the library that Linhardt had been craving. Caspar frowns at the gasping woman on the ground, and tries his best to look away from her watery blue eyes. They aren’t quite the right shade, but in the darkness of the smoke and the storm, he can almost imagine—

The bandit tries to stab him with a concealed dagger, and he reflexively crushes her nose into her face and watches, unable to look away, as wide sky-blue irises turn glassy. Then he turns and throws up yesterday’s dinner, _and_ lunch, and probably even breakfast at what his soot-addled mind had just forced him to imagine.

Caspar is beginning to consider retreating back to the watermill and asking Sothis for advice on how to find Linhardt. She’s pretty smart, and wicked good with a sword besides, so she’s probably already done something about the fire and could probably give him a hand now. Just as he firms in his decision to seek her aid and makes to turn away from yet another hopeless dead-end alleyway, a black-sleeved arm snags his shoulder and pulls him into an alcove set against the hidden back entrance of a house.

Caspar almost punches the daylights out of his assailant before he realises the man has a pair of welcome ocean-blue eyes.

“Hold this,” orders Linhardt grimly, passing him a small, wickedly sharp knife, “and do exactly as I say.”

Caspar swallows nervously, and looks at the figure on the floor taking up most of the space inside the small recess. _A rain shelter_ , he realises, as the child dying on the floor with a blade lodged firmly in her gut blinks up at him weakly.

Linhardt’s hands glow a familiar blue as he begins the arduous process of saving a life.

* * *

“I will be taking the right,” whispers Petra.

Dorothea barely has the presence of mind to whisper back in acknowledgement as three crazed bandits advance on where they stand, sandwiched against the entryway of a house. She runs through her mental list of spells mechanically, and thinks that a splash of _Thunder_ would probably not go amiss at the distance the bandit archer stands.

The sickening putrid odour of burning flesh and the sound of a sizzle assails her senses as a bolt of lightning from above him roasts him alive in his thick plates of armor.

Petra has done an admirable job of ending her chosen life, too, as she sidesteps around the lance-wielding warrior’s broad strike, leaps up and behind him, and slashes his carotid in one fell motion. She attempts to jump to the remaining warrior, but he is enraged by the death of his thunderstruck comrade and swats her off like a fly as he charges forward at Dorothea single-mindedly. Petra’s head smashes against the wall of a neighbouring house and bounces off nauseatingly, and she crumples into an unmoving heap.

Dorothea doesn’t even have time to be horrified as the gauntleted warrior barrels into her; she only hears a sickening crunch from her chest as he rams her straight through the door behind her and onto the floor inside. She doesn’t know how, but some instinct deep inside her lets her push past the pain and shove a leg against him, hard, making him roll away from her and hiss in pain. It gives her a bare moment to breathe and deliberate — _Fire_ would probably not be a good idea, in a space as enclosed and flammable as this, and _Thunder_ would take far too long to prepare — but she has no more time to think as the bandit is upon her again with a maddened roar.

She barely has the presence of mind to prepare her last usable option — she ducks and scrambles around where she lies on the floor against his onslaught with all the survival skill living orphaned in alleyways has taught her, and shoves her half-formed ball of _Thoron_ straight into his breastplate.

It emerges with a piercing _chirp_ from the other side, and she realises after a moment that she holds something in her hand that was probably previously inside her attacker’s body. She squeezes it mercilessly, and the man convulses violently before he slumps against her, foaming at the mouth and utterly lifeless.

Dorothea withdraws her lightning-encased arm, drops his unbeating and charred heart onto the ground, and empties her stomach of what little remains in it onto the floor beside her.

After staring unseeingly at the ground at the horror of what she has wrought, she musters the strength to try and stand up. Almost instantly her side gives a harsh pang of agony and she collapses back down, and she realises she probably shattered a rib when the dead bandit slammed into her.

More considerately this time and gingerly holding her wounded ribcage, she rises unsteadily again and manages to regain her footing with the help of a nearby banister. She looks around the house she finds herself in, dazed and searching for something to help dull the agony of her wound until she can find someone to Heal her.

It is a modest affair. The entryway she collapsed in also seems to serve as the dining area and the lounge; there is a simple rug next to the fireplace within, and a rickety-looking table and two time-worn chairs are situated further ahead. The banister she holds herself up with leads to what she thinks are the bedrooms, but she has neither the energy nor the inclination to investigate. Instead, she turns her attention to the alcove beneath the full-bottomed stairs — a rarity in a place so sparsely decorated, and thus likely worth exploring.

She hobbles as quickly as she dares — Petra must not be left waiting for medical attention. A simple bit of magic she learned in her street urchin days springs open the lock to the cabinet tucked underneath the stairs… and she stares at what she finds inside.

A small boy, sandy-haired and green-eyed, staring up at her in equal parts fascination and fear.

Dorothea swallows, and has to take a moment to remember how to smile. “And what might your name be, little one?” she asks in her most charming tones.

She must still have something from her Mittelfrank days left in her, because he is instantly enamoured, and beams up at her. “Theo!” he exclaims toothily.

“Theo,” she repeats, grinning back at him. “What a wonderful name. Where are your p — caretakers, Theo?”

The bow furrows his eyes at her. “You mean my mama?” She nods at him, and he shrugs in reply. “She went t’ her bakery this morning, same as everyday. ‘M usually playin’ outside with Merry, but we hid when we heard the howls.”

“Merry,” she says. “Is that a friend of yours?”

“Yeah!” replies Theo excitedly. “She lives with her pa in the house next door.”

Dorothea swallows again, glad he doesn't elaborate, or heaven forbid, ask if Dorothea has seen her. She hopes Merry is alright, but given the ashen state the house next door is in…

“Well, Theo,” she breathes slowly. “Why don't you show me where your mama keeps her medicine, and I'll help take you to her afterwards?”

* * *

Ingrid curses as loudly as she dares, and whirls to impale another wolf-demon on her lance.

Claude’s arrow whistles cleanly through the air and takes it in the throat before it can snap her head off in its death throes, and she nods gratefully at him in reply. Whatever she might think of his behaviour as a student at the Academy, and however much of a cad he might be when he’s lazing about—

—Claude the warrior has none of the false pretense Claude the schemer exudes as naturally as he breathes. Ingrid finds she likes him much better this way.

But Dimitri, on the other hand…

She winces as he roars in challenge and skewers a bandit, a few paces away from where she stands in the middle of one of Remire’s blood-paved streets, and then winces again as he grins savagely and slices the woman’s head off.

“Damned bloodthirsty boar,” spits Felix from next to her. She sighs as Felix makes good on his insult and calls him out with the name, loudly, “Hey, Boar Prince! You done with showing everyone how blood-crazed you are, or do we need to find a few more dead bandits for you to behead?”

Dimitri’s grin fades and he blinks at Felix, nonplussed. “What…? Felix?” he asks slowly, as if waking up from a dream.

Claude’s head swivels between them rapidly; Ingrid doesn’t doubt that he’s gleaning all sorts of hidden subtext from this conversation that none of them would rather he know, but she can’t quite find the energy in herself to care — not when all of their classmates are missing in this hellfire of a maze and the Knights of Seiros that were meant to back them up are also entirely missing in action.

Thankfully for her, Claude seems to agree, as he cautiously thumps Dimitri on the back, and says with a flat tone that doesn’t fit his usually exuberant voice at all, “Don’t worry about it, Your Highness. I suggest we check up on how our dynamic trio is doing with the survivor roundup, and then head deeper inside to rescue any of our classmates that might need rescuing.”

The trio in question chooses that exact moment to walk out of a nearby alley at his words — there is Sylvain, looking battered but healthy, supporting two wounded men on his shoulders and carrying a woman, and behind him is Mercedes with soot blackening her platinum blonde locks to a dull yellow, with two little girls in her arms. And following them, helping an old woman with her cane, is Ignatz — his usually neat hair is unkempt and flits wildly around his face, and his glasses are askew. Mercedes looks rather worried, and says, “These little ones can’t breathe well in the smoke. I can maintain a barrier of circulating Wind to purify the air around us, but I can’t do it while concentrating on not being hit.”

Claude mulls over the problem, and looks at Ingrid as if inspecting a particularly fascinating insect. She stares back at him with all the professionalism required of the Knight she wishes to be. Whatever he sees in her makes him nod, and he says, “Ingrid is our most mobile unit, because her horse didn’t abandon her like all of ours did when we dismounted. She can look for survivors quicker and run away from trouble if it finds her much better than any of us can, so we can set up camp here and gather everyone that we can inside Mercedes’ barrier, while she goes and looks for potential rescuees.”

Ingrid nods back, agreeing, and swiftly mounts her faithful steed. The mare whinnies slightly, but does not otherwise protest. As soon as she has situated herself, Felix hands Ingrid a helmet that he has pilfered from one of the dead bandits.

She makes a face at him and protests, “I’d rather not have the protection than wear that, thanks.”

He scowls at her and says, “Whatever,” tossing the helmet away. She tosses a salute and a _stay safe_ at her companions, and spurs her steed down the streets.

Given the huge volume of smoke and soot covering everything, a surprisingly large amount of the village is still unburnt. That must mean that the fire started in a highly flammable location — her mind flashes instantly to stores of grain. She can’t quite fight back a gasp of dismay as she realises how much of it must have burned for the inferno raging here… Galatea could likely have fed itself for many winters with that likely amount.

The people of Remire, who will also feel a hit to their food reserves as surely as the winter will come, seem to have taken a surprisingly sane approach to this fight — at least for a village she doubts has ever even had a fight grace its streets, let alone a demonic beast _and_ a bandit attack at the same time. They hide in their homes and shops and seem content to let the storm pass them by, and as much as the Knight-in-training within Ingrid wars against the notion of people just letting their home burn — she remembers wanting nothing more than for the nightmare to just be over, too, all those years ago in Duscur.

 _Unfortunately_ , she grimaces, _Remire’s nightmare will take a fair while to subdue yet._

The area of the village she soon finds herself in is quieter than the rest. The fires have blazed their way through some of the houses here already, but most are untouched. Ingrid frowns in concentration — a short distance away, she sees a man poking around the door of one of the unburnt houses. He has a blade in his hand, and behind him lie two unattended corpses; Ingrid guesses that he is a bandit, and spurs her mare into a gallop towards him.

The man turns instantly as she approaches, and his look of cautious surprise turns to one of disgusted rage. But his short blade is no match for her lance’s range, and the sheer strength of her piercing jab lifts him off his feet as he slumps uselessly against the weapon.

Ingrid throws him off her lance in disgust, then dismounts slowly. She approaches the door of the house the bandit was prowling around — a door that hangs teetering on its hinges.

She pulls out a dagger as she steps inside, since anything else would be rather useless inside the rather humbly-sized dwelling — and freezes when she feels cold steel pressed against her throat.

“One step further and you can say goodbye to your head,” warns a very familiar voice.

Ingrid swallows, and her gulp makes her throat almost cut itself open on the edge of the viciously sharp sword pressed against it. She croaks as quickly as she dares, “Dorothea?”

There is only a small pause before the sword is withdrawn and the woman steps into view. “Ingrid?” she exclaims in what sounds like truly heartfelt surprise. Ingrid can only nod, and stare. Dorothea looks… in a word, dreadful.

Her uniform is torn in several places, and one side of her face is covered almost completely in a fine layer of blood — though Ingrid cannot see any wounds, so it must not be her own. Her right sleeve is completely missing and the bare arm it exposes looks like there is a thick layer of something _charred_ onto it. And perhaps most incongruous of all:

“Your cap is missing,” blurts Ingrid, and inwardly kicks herself for being so incredibly tactless.

“Oh,” blinks Dorothea. She feels around her head as if to confirm that yes, it really is missing, then blinks again. “So it is,” she says. Then she shakes her head, as if awakening from a daze. “Nevermind that, my dear Ingrid, I need your help,” she says quickly, and leads Ingrid by the hand inside the house.

Inside, the situation is explained to her thusly: Petra is unconscious from a nasty blow to the head, though unhurt otherwise as far as Dorothea can tell, and there is an excited young boy waving at them that needs to be reunited with his mother.

He seems taken completely by Dorothea’s charm — not that Ingrid can blame him — but she is caught by surprise when he gasps, “A Knight?” as soon as he sees her. “Is she your Knight, Princess Thea?” he natters excitedly at Dorothea.

“She is, with shining armour to boot,” says Dorothea without hesitation, smiling warmly at Ingrid and mouthing _just go along with it._ Ingrid nods at the boy affably and he beams so gleefully at her that she hasn’t the heart to resolve to correct him and say that she technically isn’t a Knight yet. Or that she isn’t exactly _Dorothea’s_ Knight…

After she has shooed him to grab a frying pan from the kitchen for some undiscernible reason, Dorothea says in low tones to Ingrid, “I told him a story about an orphan who became a princess, and he asked me if I was a princess too. Silly me, I said yes, so he hasn’t shut up about Princess Thea since,” though her voice has a fondness to it that implies she has very little regrets about being called that. “Sorry for roping you into service, though, I’m sure you would rather not have little old me be your liege-lord,” she adds apologetically, grimacing.

“I wouldn’t mind,” thinks Ingrid to herself. Apparently she says it aloud, though, because Dorothea gives her an odd, unreadable look that makes Ingrid flush slightly at her accidental confession.

 _Where did_ that _come from…?_

Dorothea doesn’t press, bless her soul, and the boy returns with the requested cooking vessel. Dorothea hefts it in her arm, as if weighing it, and then turns to Ingrid with a determined nod. “Well, then, shall we?”

“Claude and Dimitri have set up camp with a few others a little while away from here,” replies Ingrid hesitantly. “Wouldn’t it be more prudent to go there instead?”

The boy frowns up at her, though Ingrid pretends she can’t see his expression as she focuses all her attention on Dorothea instead. The odd, unreadable look on her face is back — but this time it is accompanied by a fierce determination that sparks a flame behind Dorothea’s eyes and utterly transforms how she appears to Ingrid in that moment.

Dorothea shakes her head.

“I promised Theo,” she says firmly, in a voice that implies Nemesis himself could descend upon her and she would still not budge.

 _So that’s where that thought came from,_ realises Ingrid belatedly. She had thought Dorothea looked terrible, when she’d met her just now, but Ingrid realises that hadn’t quite completed the picture of things.

_Terrible, yes, but beautiful._

“Let’s go, then,” says Ingrid, swallowing her inner turmoil and averting her gaze, as Theo whoops in joy.

* * *

“We will not let you down,” promises Byleth with a solemnity that Edelgard has never seen from her before.

Still, she wishes to show solidarity with her housemate, so she nods entirely seriously at the baker standing before them as well.

“Thank you, dear,” says the woman in question, grateful. “I always knew you were the good sort.”

“We’ll set up our fortification here, then, and you can take shelter in your pantry. It wouldn’t be safe otherwise,” adds Edelgard gently. The woman nods, thanks them again, and wishes them luck before she bolts herself inside.

Byleth and Edelgard look at each other. “Are you going to go upstairs to Bernadetta’s scout’s nest?” queries Edelgard. Byleth appears to mull it over, then shakes her head in the negative.

Edelgard frowns. “If you’re worried about me, don’t be. I can handle myself down here,” she says firmly.

Byleth shakes her head again, this time with a faint smile. “It’s not that, actually. I just thought it might be nice to hang out as we shoot down any bandits that get close,” she says.

Edelgard blinks in bewilderment, then shrugs and picks up the spare bow-and-quiver set Shamir had graciously lent her. “I don’t mind,” she replies, and they take up positions near the window of the bakery without another word.

Minutes pass by. Edelgard cannot hear much of the village from where they are — the fire was already quite far away, and it seems to have died down anyway, given that the thick billowing clouds of smoke rising from the watermill have all but dissipated. The wind, too, has picked up, as the creak of the bakery’s miraculously still intact hanging signboard indicates; it hasn’t started raining again yet, but Edelgard expects that it might come soon with the way the gloomy clouds press in with each passing moment.

A pair of bandits turn into the street the bakery is located on, seemingly headed towards the far end. They are far too close for Bernadetta to be able to shoot them without exposing herself dangerously on the rooftop where she is concealed but still rather vulnerable if spotted, so Edelgard nocks an arrow in her hidden housemate’s stead.

“I’ve got the left,” she whispers. Byleth whispers back in acknowledgement, and Edelgard readies her bow. She isn’t quite an expert at using it, but the sole heir of the Empire needs to be well acquainted with all manner of warfare, so she has trained enough with it to consider herself at least adequate.

She draws her arm back, rises in an uncomfortable half-crouch — the windows of the bakery are not particularly high, even for her stature, so she cannot properly stand — and waits.

Thin green pinpricks of light gather behind one of the bandits, who are, by now, only about a dozen paces away from where Edelgard and Byleth hide. They don’t seem to have spotted anything amiss yet, as they head to the east end of the street with a dogged determination.

“Ready,” breathes Byleth.

“Now,” replies Edelgard after a single beat, and releases her arrow. It strikes true, taking her target in the throat. Byleth’s _Saggitae_ skewers the other one at the same time, and the two collapse with a _thump_ and a wet gurgle.

“Good shot,” compliments Byleth.

“Praise isn’t necessary,” replies Edelgard with a satisfied smile, and settles back into a prepared position.

More minutes of silence pass, uninterrupted save the occasional gust of wind.

“You didn’t,” utters Byleth into the silence. Edelgard takes a few moments to try to deliberate what she might mean, but can only respond with a “Huh?” when she fails.

“You didn’t cost me my pastry, when we met the first time,” elaborates Byleth. “I ended up getting one from this very bakery, right before we set out for Garreg Mach.”

Edelgard can only blink, entirely unsure of what to do with the information. She seems to be blinking a lot lately, she realises — and mostly in Byleth’s admittedly rather confusing presence.

“It was quite nice, actually,” continues the woman without seeming to realise Edelgard’s mystified state. “The dough was crunchy and flaky in exactly the right way, and the filling was a very sweet but tangy lemon cream affair. I liked it a surprising amount, given that I don’t have many sweets,” she muses.

“You should try sorbet, then,” offers Edelgard, not able to come up with anything else to say. “I’m quite partial to the peach variety they serve at the dining hall at the Monastery, and its flavour could definitely be described as sweet but tangy.”

“Hmmm,” hums Byleth. “You seem to know quite a bit about sweets. Do you enjoy them a lot?”

Edelgard blushes slightly, embarrassed. “You could say that,” she says diplomatically.

“Sweets, and my sister’s company… although I wouldn’t exactly call her sweet. What exactly are your intentions with her?” queries Byleth without even the slightest change in inflection.

Edelgard turns to gape at her in astonishment, cheeks blazing with heat. “W-where did that — I have no idea what you mean! Intentions? I have no intentions,” she says furiously, attempting to sound affronted but only managing a mortified squeak.

“Disappointing,” frowns Byleth. “I would have thought someone as refined as you would be interested in more than a person’s sexual appeal.”

Edelgard is sure that if her face burns any hotter, it will start another fire in this village. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she insists, and fights off the immense urge to bury her face in her hands. She attempts to meet Byleth’s gaze in an attempt to assure the woman of the truth of her words — and has to look away instantly at Byleth’s soul-searching gaze.

 _They’re definitely sisters with that stare,_ bemoans Edelgard internally at her failure.

“ _Oh_ ,” exclaims Byleth after a moment, smacking her forehead in realisation. Edelgard turns back to stare at her. “Right, you’re still in the denial phase of the relationship! I can’t believe I forgot that could happen, even though I read about it,” she mutters in frustration.

Edelgard wonders how it is possible for anyone to utter such embarrassing things without even the slightest trace of shame. _I envy her that, if I’m being honest with myself,_ she admits privately.

“My apologies for pushing,” continues Byleth sincerely, just as Edelgard is about to combust. “But I asked only,” her voice turns utterly grave, “because I wanted you to know something.”

Edelgard silently waits for her to explain, her blush fading slightly in curiosity.

“You see,” begins Byleth solemnly. “Sothis is a very capable mercenary, and by far the finest warrior I know. Not even Dad could out-muscle her in a spar by the time we turned sixteen, and she’s only gotten much better since. I remember we had a contract to chase down a band of traitorous soldiers, once, and she fought off ten of them to a standstill, all at the same time, while the rest of us freed their prisoners. Once, we needed to break into an abandoned mansion, and she threw a tree at its wall hard enough to cave it in completely. I sincerely doubt there’s anyone alive who could outmatch her in mortal combat if she really tries.

“I told you all that,” she says, as Edelgard swallows in apprehension, “because I want you to know that I _don’t_ fight like that. The magic I usually display in battle is flashy, but I’m much better at the illusory varieties. I can turn my footsteps and clothing so utterly silent that not even I can hear myself, and I can become a living shadow so obscure that even the brightest ray of light will not reveal me. If I do not want my presence to be felt, it will not be. Where my sister chooses to face her fights head on, I will attack from every angle _but_ the obvious.”

“Why are you telling me any of this?” asks Edelgard with a frown, embarrassment forgotten. “Is this meant to be a… a _threat_ of some sort?”

“It’s not a threat,” says Byleth. “It’s a promise. If you hurt anyone my sister cares about, she might forgive you — or she might decide to pummel you to within an inch of your life. But if you hurt her?” Byleth leans in, as if to punctuate her words. Edelgard shivers slightly in anticipation.

“If you hurt her, I will make sure they never find your corpse,” she promises.

Edelgard’s frown turns into a scowl, and she considers reaching for her dagger. “I’ve faced worse threats than yours, and I expect that I’ll continue to face them for as long as I live,” she hisses through gritted teeth. “You don’t scare me.”

“Great!” exclaims Byleth, her usual cheer returning in full force. Edelgard gapes at her dizzying swing of tone. “Sothis is a bit of a bully, as you might have already guessed, and she’s made her fair share of enemies over the years. Not the least of which are shady bounty hunters angered over missed marks, or nobles angry over property damage, or…” Byleth’s voice drops to a whisper and she shivers visibly, “the _barkeeps_.”

“The… the barkeeps?” whispers Edelgard back in confusion, not certain if she truly wishes to know.

“You don’t want to know,” promises Byleth, returning to her normal volume. “But it’s good to know you’ll be able to handle any of them, since you didn't even blink at my most threatening aura! Professor Manuela told me there’s nothing worse than having a romantic tryst ruined by old and forgotten enemies jumping out of the woods,” she adds, apparently by way of explanation.

Edelgard’s blush returns as if it had never left. “…I’ll keep that in mind,” she says, not quite managing to meet Byleth’s eyes.

“I’m glad we had this discussion,” beams Byleth, and then, “Oh, look, I guess the bandit army found us.”

Edelgard follows her gaze to the far end of the path that leads away from the bakery. A sizeable force — almost thirty strong, by her count — is gathered there, and though she can barely hear their jeers and shouts, she can make out words that sound vaguely like _kill_ and _Imperial Princess_.

“They don’t seem to like you very much,” muses Byleth. “But don’t worry, I’ve got a spell prepared if they discover we’re hiding in here.”

Edelgard spots shadows of movement in the alleyways opposite the bakery, and frowns.

“I don’t think you’ll need to,” she says, and points.

“I suppose not,” agrees Byleth, as Ingrid storms out of one of the alleys on horseback with Dorothea seated behind her, and a young sandy-haired boy who could hardly be more than ten winters old tucked between them.

Ingrid swerves her mare deftly and ducks beneath the oncoming flood of arrows and spears aimed at them by the bandits, as Dorothea flails what seems to be... a heavily charred frying pan at them. The bandits rage at their near miss, and charge at the fleeing woman as she rides out of sight to the side of the bakery. Byleth frowns slightly, and Edelgard watches cautiously as the army of bandits get nearer and nearer to the bakery where they hide. She tenses in readiness — then jumps slightly as Byleth chuckles.

“I was wondering where they were,” says Byleth, and points to the other alleyways.

The Knights of Seiros and the entirety of the Officer’s Academy’s students swarm out of them and surround the bandits in mere moments, and Edelgard watches in relief and surging hope as the bandits are left with nowhere to turn.

Professor Jeralt thunders out on a large black warhorse and whirls his lance in a fell sweep that separates two bandits from their heads. A third snarls and leaps at him, but Jeralt looks at him with an apoplectic fury that Edelgard wishes to never see on his face again, and turns his steed nimbly to perform an overhead slam with his lance that shatters his attacker’s sword into pieces. The bandit barely has the time to stare at it in shock before the Professor skewers him and tosses his corpse into a group of his comrades.

 _Blade-Breaker_ , recalls Edelgard with a nervous gulp.

Sothis, not to be outdone, leaps from the back of her father’s horse onto another bandit and crushes his skull into the ground, then rolls away and elegantly gores another with her sword. Professor Hanneman rushes out from behind the duo, too, and conjures a storm of wind that throws the brigand ranks into utter disarray. The chaos is the perfect storm for the ten Knights of Seiros take over, and Edelgard watches in morbid fascination as they systematically eliminate their foes with precisely coordinated swings of gleaming steel.

 _This is the face of your enemy,_ a voice inside her says, but for the first time in a long while, she pays it little heed.

The bandits take mere minutes to be utterly destroyed to the last man, and everyone gathered seems to fold over in relief.

Bernadetta, surprisingly, is the first to jump down from the rooftop and join her classmates in their subdued celebration, and Byleth follows her soon after. Edelgard walks out more sedately, after she has let the owner of the bakery know it is safe to leave — and watches with a heavy, undecipherable emotion in her heart as the woman nearly weeps in joy and embraces the child Ingrid and Dorothea brought to her. “Theo,” cries the baker, and squeezes him tightly to her chest even as he squirms in her grip.

Edelgard nearly forgets how to breathe for a moment. That name…

She shakes herself out of the fog of memory when Sothis walks over to them with an exhausted smile, and watches enviously as she hugs Byleth. Her envy evaporates instantly into a squeak of embarrassment as Sothis crushes her in a hug, too, immediately after she has let go of Byleth — but she can hardly find it in herself to deny herself the comfort after the supremely fatiguing days they have all just had, even though she can _feel_ Hubert’s disapproving gaze on her.

Edelgard turns to look for him and subtly remind him that she can _hug who she likes_ and he is _not_ allowed to reprimand her for it — and sees one of the bandits rise from the ground, curved blade in hand, and charge at the closest student.

Edelgard has barely begun to shout in alarm at Leonie, who seems to be his target, when a wall of abyssal spikes slams into the leaping bandit from the side and turns him into a fine bloody mist.

Edelgard slumps, relieved; for all of Hubert’s nosiness, at least his vigilance keeps everyone safe. But when she finally finds him in the crowd, he is looking at the bandit’s vaporised remains wearing an uncharacteristic look of surprise, and there is a conspicuous lack of prepared magic in his hand. Who in the world had managed to cast _Dark Spikes_ so quickly and in such a brutally efficient manner, if not him…?

“You should really be more careful,” she hears Lysithea scold Leonie gently, and Edelgard’s jaw drops in surprise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> therapist: dorothea with bootleg chidori isn't real, she can't hurt you
> 
> dorothea with bootleg chidori:


	11. Spiderweb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Feelings are considered, plans are made, and revelations come to light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> one hundred (!) kudos omg! thank you kindly to everyone who has read and appreciated this weird plot-bunny turned plot-cookie-monster, ily all! here's some (slightly angsty) fluff as thanks

Seteth steeples his hands together, and considers the gathering of three in his office.

“The leaderless bandits and their reinforcements were hired by a wing of _your_ Church? Clearly, you’ve spared a very concerning amount of your detail from your story,” gripes Sothis at Rhea, who grimaces.

Seteth doesn’t quite register Rhea’s reply. He is preoccupied by the feeling of something… impending. It is as if there is something missing, something important…

There is a knock on the door that spells a hush over the discussion.

“I am busy,” calls Seteth.

The doorknob twists open and admits Flayn, who looks rather… irritated with him. “Brother,” she says crossly, closing the door behind her and frowning at Seteth.

Byleth lays her bit of patented silencing-bubble magic over the room, and Flayn smiles briefly at her in thanks, before turning back to glare at Seteth.

“Father,” corrects Flayn, and her frown deepens. “I thought we had an implicit agreement to not have any discussions with the family _without_ my presence?”

Seteth sighs. “We had no such agreement. For your own good, I did not think it wise for you to participate,” he pleads.

Flayn glowers at him, says “No,” in an unbending voice, and plops herself onto the chair in front of Seteth’s desk.

“You may continue,” she adds to the room imperiously.

Byleth snorts, and Seteth sighs again. He is keenly aware of Sothis eying him, wondering if he will say anything, but he simply silently shakes his head which she takes as a signal to continue.

“The Western Church chose that exact moment to rebel and draw the Knights away from Remire?” asks Sothis sceptically.

“In truth, they have been stirring for many years now, though the timing is certainly quite suspicious. I do not know exactly what has spurred them on, but any attempts at infiltrating them to find out have been soundly rebuffed. They claim only that the Holy Church of Seiros are heretics and pervert the true will of the Goddess,” replies Rhea, looking as if her very being is affronted at the thought.

Sothis shifts uncomfortably and furrows a brow. “How exactly would they know the Goddess’ will? And how exactly would you, for that matter?” she challenges.

Rhea blinks in surprise, clearly not expecting that particular line of inquiry. “I… you — your teachings?” she tries.

The furrow in Sothis’ brow turns into a scowl. “My teachings,” she repeats, sounding annoyed. She sighs suddenly instead of continuing, and paces around the office; once, twice, thrice — and then pauses in front of the only painting that Seteth has ever felt the need to put up in his office.

“You seem,” she begins without turning, staring at the artistic rendition of Flayn’s true form, “fairly certain that I am your mother, and the one known as the Goddess, only unfortunately amnesiac. That is correct, is it not?”

“It is,” confirms Rhea, swallowing nervously.

“Then why is it,” continues Sothis, still not turning, “that whenever I think of what little I have been able to glean about the activities of the Knights of Seiros, I feel as if they are incredibly _unlike_ what I would want? Memories of my past self or no, and godly being who shaped this land or no, I cannot fathom being so insecure about myself that I feel the need to inflict capital punishment upon those who refuse to praise me!”

Rhea frowns back. “You — you likely would not remember even if you had your memories, but the humans… they _killed_ you, mother. They slaughtered you, and then — and then they used the power they gained from your death to slaughter all your children. It — it hardly seems like the thing to trust them after,” she argues, surprising Seteth. He hadn’t expected her to be able to talk back to Sothis so soon after they had reunited, but perhaps her mother's teatime conversations with her have restored some modicum of confidence in Rhea.

 _At least she looks happier_ , Seteth reflects. He’d even caught her _singing_ to the plants in the greenhouse a few days ago.

Sothis, however, seems intent on reminding Rhea of her place. In an icy voice Seteth has not heard in more than a millennium, she finally turns to Rhea and grits out, “Bandits. Bandits killed me. Just like the ignorant wastrels we spent the last two days hunting down. Hardly the most representative sample of the human race, and _hardly_ representative enough, I would think, to paint _all of humanity_ with the same _ignorant_ brush!

“You may be my daughter, but that does not make you _me_. If you wished to punish all of humanity for their crimes, you should have done so of your own accord and not hidden behind your mother — a nebulous Goddess whose will you claim to know exclusively. I cannot know what context my memories would give me, but if you accept that I have, at the least, the same consciousness as the Sothis who was slain, then you must also accept that with that consciousness I disagree with your persecution of the many for the wrongs of the few,” she lectures, holding Rhea’s stare. Rhea shrinks back nervously, though she seems like she is trying her hardest to hang on to every word.

“If I may,” interrupts Seteth delicately. He sweats a little underneath his collar when every pair of eyes flicks over to him, but continues unwaveringly, “we _did_ wage war against and destroy an entire species that attempted to challenge your godhood. I do not have a stake in this, and my only concern has always been for my daughter, but it seems only fair to let you know that Rhea’s actions are not… entirely without precedent.”

Sothis stares at him. “You… you mean to tell me,” she croaks, the fury in her voice utterly spent, “that I committed _genocide_? Against — against who?!”

Seteth frowns. “I would not use the term _genocide_ , for it was a war, and their entire species was focused utterly on annihilating both the humans and us Nabateans. More precisely, they wished to claim godhood by subjugating everyone else and forcing them into servitude to their whims. You focused little on the war, yourself, except towards the end when you chose to decisively end it, and it was in fact the very act of healing Fódlan of the destruction that our battles wrought that you fell asleep,” he explains.

Sothis staggers over to the desk, sits in the remaining unoccupied chair, and puts her head into her hands. Byleth steps over and places a comforting arm on her sister’s shoulder.

“…” says Sothis in a muffled voice from between her hands.

“Pardon?” asks Seteth.

“Their name,” she says, looking up. “The species that I apparently wiped out. Or helped my children wipe out. What were they called?”

Seteth shares an uneasy glance with Rhea. “The Agarthans,” he replies. “From the land of Agartha. It exists no more, after the destruction wrought upon Fódlan in that ancient struggle.”

“And how certain are you,” inquires Sothis slowly, “that I killed every last one of them?”

Seteth exchanges another look with Rhea, this one far more concerned. “Until just now,” admits Rhea before Seteth can reply, “we were quite certain, because they have not been seen in Fódlan for so long. But there have been reports of activity from certain… suspicious individuals, recently, and I would not have thought of the Agarthans until Seteth spoke of them, but — it is possible some of them slipped through the cracks.”

Sothis throws her head back, this time, and stares at Seteth’s ceiling.

“I bet they got those bandits to kill you the first time around, too,” muses Byleth, and Seteth turns to stare at her. It could be true, he realises with fraught horror — if the Agarthans had never all died, and if his mother had truly never wanted to kill them in the first place, then there may have been vengeful survivors…

Sothis barely even twitches in acknowledgement at the thought, and says in a frustrated murmur, “Sounds likely.”

“You let them live,” says Flayn unexpectedly. Seteth blinks at his daughter, and Rhea frowns down at her. Sothis turns in Flayn’s direction with her head still thrown back awkwardly.

“You had to have known that they would seek revenge, and possibly even kill you in your weakened state,” continues Flayn curiously. “But you were the omnipotent Goddess, so you… you must have _let_ it happen. Why?”

“Damned if I know,” says Sothis with a shrug. Seteth fights back an unexpected surge of amusement at his daughter’s unsuccessful attempt to not balk at Sothis’ candour. “Perhaps I felt like I deserved the likelihood of death after _murdering nearly a whole species_.”

“But,” continues Sothis, turning her head level again to stare at Seteth’s desk with some of her previous energy returning to her tone, “if I were to make the decision to spare some of them now, without fully knowing the context of the war, I would make it because I cannot condone the painting of an entire species with a singular brushstroke. Even at the cost of my own life. A lesson that I clearly failed to impart,” she adds, turning to Rhea with a grimace. Rhea only blinks back in surprise and bewilderment.

Byleth moves her hand from Sothis’ shoulder to her head, and gives it a few consoling pats.

“You were probably a terrible parent without me around to help,” she says sadly.

Sothis only sighs in resignation, not bothering to dispute her sibling’s claim.

“Good thing I’m here now,” comforts Byleth with another headpat.

Seteth wonders privately what Jeralt has been teaching his children, and whether he should swallow his pride and ask the man for lessons.

* * *

“For some of you,” lectures Professor Manuela grimly, “that was not your first time facing battle. For many of you it was. But to all of you regardless…

“The Officer’s Academy is an institution of learning, and it is a place to cultivate friendships, to court allies, and even to make amends with enemies — but above all it is a combat academy, and there is no substitute for learning combat in true battle.

“I say that because it is important for all of you to know: as students at the Officer’s Academy, you must be taught to defend yourself in combat, even at the cost of another’s life. But as your Professor, it is my duty to guide you through the messy, traumatising, emotionally scarring process of dealing with taking another's life.”

She pauses to sigh softly, sips at a wooden mug on her desk in the classroom, and continues.

“Very few of the battles you face will have enemies as well-defined as the ones we faced recently, and fewer of your enemies still will meet you so plainly on a battlefield. And not all of your battles will feature death, and even of those that do, very rarely will all of your enemies need to be killed to be destroyed.

“But there will come times when they do — and for those times, I invite anyone who wishes to speak about their experiences to my door. I will not pressure you to talk, nor will I force you to think about your actions in any particular light. My offer is merely to reassure you that your feelings on the topic are not invalid, whatever they may be. I am here for you, my dearest students.

“That is all for today’s lecture. Class dismissed.”

Manuela is not surprised when most of her Eagles leave. Bernadetta flees to her room the fastest, as is usual for the anxious girl — but Dorothea, surprisingly, is next to leave after her, not even waiting for Petra to finish saying whatever she had been explaining. Petra blinks in surprise and then shrugs before she heads out too, and Manuela frowns as she makes a mental note to check up on her old protégé later.

Edelgard and Hubert share glances as they see Dorothea leave, and then to Manuela’s eternal surprise, the black-haired mage strikes up a conversation with Ferdinand and draws him out of whatever thoughts were causing his brow to wrinkle. Edelgard waves a goodbye at Sothis and Byleth, and leaves in another direction entirely. The former mercenaries trade some odd hand gestures and then they, too, part ways.

Linhardt, unsurprisingly, is the only one that remains in the end — after Caspar pats him on the shoulder and bounds away with only the slightest of frowns.

“I hate fighting, Professor,” says Linhardt bluntly, after Manuela has locked the doors of the classroom to give them privacy.

“I would be a lot more worried if you didn’t,” she replies, smiling humourlessly as she strides back to her desk. “I would hate to lie to you and tell you that it gets easier to take a life — it doesn’t. That sick feeling I get watching their eyes glass over, as their life leaves them slowly but surely, wondering how easily that could have been me instead — I’ve never quite gotten over that visceral shock. But I appreciate that feeling, all the same, because it means that I haven’t lost myself to it yet. The day I do…” she trails off, surveying her hands in silence for a minute as Linhardt stares at her.

“Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we reach it, hm?” she says, snapping herself out of her reverie. “But you and I, Linhardt — we’re luckier than others might be. We don’t always have to take lives; sometimes, we get the chance to save them too. Caspar might as well have shouted from the rooftops about how you saved that little girl’s life in Remire, but you never really shared how that made _you_ feel.”

Linhardt swallows roughly, and looks away. “I wasn’t even trying to — I was going to leave her there, Professor, because I thought she wouldn’t have made it despite my help anyway and it would have been crueler to give her false hope. But she cried out for her father, a-and I knew there was nobody coming, because her father was…” he trails off, hair shadowing his eyes as he stares at his lap.

“So I started trying, even though there was so much blood,” he continues in a smaller voice. “She — I don’t know what sort of monster impales a child with a blade twice her size and just… just leaves her to die. But it missed her vitals, miraculously, and I didn’t have enough energy to Heal the entirety of her massive wound away but Caspar helped me sew it back up, and…” he pauses and has to swallow again before he can continue.

“She kept telling us stories, even when she was hovering between life and death. Her name was Merry, and she said she liked to play with her dolls and her friend Theo and swim in the river, and she was going to swim when the bandits attacked. I — I don’t know what I would have done with myself if she had died, Professor,” he admits, and wipes at the moisture at his eyes with a handkerchief Manuela kindly offers.

“But she didn’t,” replies Manuela gently. “You saved her, Linhardt, and you saved many others like her by fighting. I hate it too,” she admits. “But it is necessary, sometimes, to preserve the good in the world.”

“I appreciate the sentiment, Professor,” says Linhardt. “But I truly wish the world was a place where I would never have to see blood again, and I could just nap my days away in peace. Does that make me selfish?”

“Not at all,” says Manuela. “I wish for a world like that too, honestly — where my only worries are how much I’ve had to drink, or finding a man for myself, or worrying about how Seteth will react to my latest escapade. I think it’s more selfless than selfish — after all, a world like that would have to be more peaceful for everyone, not just us. And I’ll help teach you everything I can to help make that world a reality.”

“Thank you, Professor,” says Linhardt again. “I think… after this discussion, I may need a nap.”

She waves him off with a smile and a fond chuckle, and settles back in her chair to think.

Based on the shadows of the setting sun, Manuela estimates it is around four in the afternoon. She contemplates that for a minute; then she fishes out a key she keeps strapped to her thigh, unlocks her desk, and digs out a bottle of light gold liquid that she stares at.

She hesitantly uncorks it, and pours herself a shot, and thinks of her students. Linhardt had been far from the only one affected; even Byleth, who seems the most unflappable of the bunch, has been making her usually terrible jokes with a lower frequency than usual.

What worries her most, though is Dorothea — the frightened yet scrappy little girl she’d been on the streets of Enbarr, the nervous yet marvellously talented singer she’d been on the stage, and the dedicated and conscientious student she is now. Manuela swirls the amber thoroughly in the glass, staring at her reflection in it.

Then she tosses the whiskey into a nearby potted plant, replaces the bottle back into the drawer, and goes to look for her student.

* * *

Edelgard frowns at Professor Jeralt.

“I need to… visualise the flame?” she repeats, unconvinced.

“That’s how I always think of it,” he replies with a shrug. “Well, I suppose it only helps if you’ve already managed to find your magical centre.”

“My magical centre?” repeats Edelgard again, thoroughly lost.

The Professor scratches his chin in thought.

Edelgard watches him, trying to sift through her memories to recall if Hubert has ever mentioned such a thing to her in their repeated attempts at getting her to learn magic. He insists that she learn to Warp, at least, and while she is making progress on that front, her ability to offensively use her magic is beyond abysmal. But despite Hubert’s clear talent at the magical arts, he is not a particularly gifted instructor. Edelgard suspects at least part of it is because he is self-taught, but it must mostly be because he instinctively understands the ebb and flow of magic, and does not need the crutch of an explanation to tell him something his mind and body already know how to do.

Edelgard, however, does _not_ instinctively understand even the slightest thing about magic. The most she has ever managed to do is figure out how to effectively wield her Crests in combat, but she suspects that isn’t quite what Professor Jeralt is referring to.

“For that,” rumbles Jeralt after a while. “I think picturing yourself as a large body of water might help.”

Edelgard stares at him. “And… do what with the image?” she asks, slowly. Perhaps asking him for instruction hadn’t been the best idea, but Sothis had assured her that he had taught Byleth most of the foundation of her skills — and given Byleth’s incredible display of magical talent, Edelgard had been easily convinced to seek his tutelage.

 _I didn’t exactly have many other options,_ she admits to herself with a faint grimace.

Edelgard is still somewhat leery of Byleth after her ominous threat, even if she seems to genuinely not bear Edelgard any ill will. The other Professors are out of the question as well; Manuela already knows too much about her from her occasionally necessary visits to the infirmary and she is wary of giving the woman any more information about herself, no matter how well-meaning she may seem — and Hanneman, while polite, focuses a little _too_ intensely on anything even peripherally related to Crests. If he gets even a hint of the fact that she bears _two_ , not to mention what one of them actually is… well.

Her fellow students, too, were ruled out the moment she was made — the Imperial Princess must never show weakness to her peers, after all.

Professor Jeralt does not comment on whatever multitudes of emotion she must surely have displayed on her face at her mind’s tangential train of thought, and continues his explanation, “If you imagine that you’re a pool of water, where the water is your store of magical talent, then your ability to use magic is determined by how much of that water you can carry out of that pool. Once you’ve realised that, you can begin thinking of ways to do... well, just that. In that analogy, the pool of water would be your magical centre.”

Edelgard considers this, frowning contemplatively. “And what ways are there to siphon water from that pool?” she asks.

The Professor smiles grimly. “That’s what separates the magically gifted from the mundane. If you’re born with a natural abundance of talent, there are already streams in your being that let you take as much as you want from your pool of magic. You can widen the streams with practice, of course. Or, if you’re one of the lucky few with a Crest, you can use its power to… erode a riverbed into existence, so to speak.”

“As it so happens, I do have a Crest,” replies Edelgard slowly. “How would I go about carrying out this… erosion?”

“Well, the precise way would depend on the nature of your Crest, but I like to think—”

“Hello, Professor! It’s good to see you here! Oh, and hello, Edelgard!” interrupts a soft, cheery voice.

“Heya, Professor! And it’s always wonderful to see such a beautiful face, Lady Edelgard,” says another, deeper voice. Edelgard closes her eyes and sighs in irritation. She’d picked the indoor training room next to the library for the sole fact that she was less likely to be interrupted here — but it seemed the Blue Lions had the same idea.

“Mercedes, good to see you too,” greets Professor Jeralt. “Sylvain, stop harassing my student.”

“Harassing?” cries Sylvain, sounding deeply offended. “I was simply remarking upon the radiance of Her Highness — complimenting her charm comes as naturally to me as complimenting, say, the sky!”

Professor Jeralt frowns at the redhead, but Edelgard chimes in before he can speak. “You can drop the act, Sylvain, it’s not terribly likely to work on me.”

He sighs, but concedes defeat. “You drive a hard bargain, Edelgard, but so be it,” he says. Edelgard suppresses the urge to roll her eyes at his melodrama and turns to Mercedes, who is eyeing her curiously.

“I couldn’t help but catch the tail end of your conversation, Edelgard, Professor,” she says interestedly. “You were discussing Crests?”

“Their application in magic, yes,” replies the Professor. “Say, you have a Crest too, don’t you? Were you taught to use something similar at the Royal School of Sorcery?”

“I can’t say that I was,” muses Mercedes thoughtfully. “Why, that seems like quite the novel idea! Wherever did you come to learn of it, Professor?”

“My wife taught me,” he says simply. “She used to say that Crests help with exploring magical talent, but that they aren’t supposed to be a substitute for it.”

Sylvain snorts from where he is preparing a magical practice dummy. “Seems like they’re pretty useless after all, then,” he mutters bitterly.

Edelgard blinks at him. “Do you have something against Crests?” she inquires curiously.

“Do I have something against Crests, she says,” he repeats incredulously. “I have something against Crests, alright — the damned things are a curse, and I wish I’d never been born with mine. And I haven’t met a single person who wouldn’t be better off if they had never existed in the first place. I bet even Mercedes here agrees with me, for instance.”

The woman in question nods easily at his words, saying sadly, “My mother and I had to flee our family in the Empire because of my Crest. I’m sure I would have been much happier without it; and from what I can gather, my circumstances are hardly unique.”

Edelgard swivels her head between the two, as if in a dream. Her entire ideology, endorsed so effortlessly — and by people loyal to the Kingdom, no less! Her uncle had assured her that she needed power only he could offer to make her dream a reality, and she’d grudgingly accepted his alliance with a promise to herself to utterly destroy him and his ilk at the first opportunity — but they’ve been rebuffing all of her attempts to contact them lately, and if Sylvain is right, then…

She needs to find Hubert.

Edelgard gets up and sketches a shallow incline of her head to Professor Jeralt, who gives her an intrigued look. “Thank you, Professor. Your tutelage has been quite helpful, and I will be sure to report back on my progress. Thank you too, Sylvain, Mercedes. You’ve given me a lot to think about,” she says, and leaves without waiting for a reply.

 _Maybe,_ thinks Edelgard as she strides through the hallways, with a hope that has miraculously become familiar flourishing in her heart, _I can remain myself after all._

* * *

“Check,” says Jeralt in surprise.

“And mate,” sighs Sothis.

“Hm,” replies Jeralt as he considers his final move, and surveys his daughter.

Sothis’ eyes are focused on the board, as always, and her brows are knit in concentration as she idly taps her arm to a beat he cannot hear. There is nothing out of the ordinary about the scene. Jeralt has played against Sothis hundreds of times before, and while her mannerisms have changed over the years, there has always been one constant:

“I haven’t beaten you in a game since you were ten years old,” muses Jeralt.

Sothis blinks in surprise, and then chuckles. “You had to finally learn _sometime_ , honestly — I’ve probably given you _so_ many openings over the years,” she teases him gently.

Jeralt laughs, and starts packing up the well-worn board. “Maybe so, but… are you sure you’re adjusting well to life here?” he queries softly.

Sothis pauses her tapping. “…it’s been harder than I thought it might be,” she admits. “Not because it isn’t nice here and everything, but, well — commanding and fighting with our mercenary band is a bit different from commanding and fighting with people who’ve barely seen the sight of blood before. Not to mention…” she looks around, but the area around the gazebo is deserted save for them, “that whole mess with you-know-what.”

“I didn’t expect it to be easy on you… though I didn’t expect things to head in this direction either. But you’ve been doing a good job with it so far. Just remember that you’ve always got my support. Both of you.”

“Thanks, Dad,” replies Sothis with a soft smile, looking touched. “Speaking of, have you seen her today?”

“No,” frowns Jeralt. “Actually — ah.”

The aforementioned walks in to the garden with none other than Alois, both wheezing in nearly hysterical laughter. Byleth manages to croak out a _hi dad, hey Sothis_ , before she doubles over in giggles again and has to clutch the Knight’s arm for support.

Jeralt folds his arms. “Did you show her my book of jokes, Alois?” he demands.

“Sure did, Captain,” replies Alois, still chortling. “Why, there were some quips in there so marvellous that—” he breaks into laughter again.

“T-the storm blew away a f-fourth of the roof,” snickers Byleth. “Oof.”

Sothis groans loudly, shaking her head in utter disappointment, and Jeralt sighs. “She wasn’t ready for them, Alois, I told you,” he reprimands.

“Sorry, Captain,” the man replies. “But she seemed so interested that I had a hard time refusing, and I thought—”

“You laugh too loudly,” interrupts a dour, monotone voice.

Every head turns as one to survey the newcomer, not quite sure how to respond as the laughter fades away. Alois recovers first.

“Ah, Professor Jeritza!” he exclaims cheerily. “Good of you to join us! I hope we didn’t bother you terribly, but the sheer comedy present in that book—”

“I did not come to ask for an explanation,” cuts Jeritza. “I came to ask for a duel,” he says, and turns to Byleth in expectation.

“To the death?” queries Byleth mildly.

“I only wanted to spar…” he murmurs back in disappointment. He hangs his head and walks over to Sothis.

“Do you wish to duel?” he asks her.

Sothis blinks. “I could be convinced,” she replies slowly.

He stares at her. She stares back.

“…to the training grounds, then?” she gives in, smiling slightly.

Jeralt scratches his beard in thought as he watches the two depart, then follows in slight concern, leaving the board game half-packed. That man gives him an odd feeling, and while he trusts his daughter to handle herself more than he trusts himself with anything, he cannot help but be worried…

As he trails after them, he hears Byleth’s distant voice ask Alois, “Care for a game?”

* * *

The bright light of the full moon makes Byleth’s sweat-slicked hair glisten, and she grumbles in annoyance as she ties it back and trudges in the direction of the dining hall.

She’d been training in an attempt to clear her head, because Sothis swears by a good set of push-up repetitions to help her sleep, but it has done absolutely nothing but make her feel more tired and hungry. Not even reading through her copy of _Magick and Thee_ , possibly the driest book she owns, had done her much good — except make the backs of her eyes burn with fatigue, but closing them does little except make her want to open them again and feel rather like the world’s most sleep-deprived goldfish.

Byleth sighs uncharacteristically in frustration, and begins to snoop around the deserted dining hall for a midnight snack. Someone, surely, must have been careless enough to leave sufficient food here to quell the pangs of hunger training have given her — but as her luck would have it, at this hour of midnight the cleaners have long since dispensed with their duties, and left the gargantuan hall completely bare of anything edible. She _humphs_ and resigns herself to a long night of trying to sleep hungry; but pauses contemplatively when she catches sight of the moon shining on the lake outside.

A failed attempt to curb her compulsion to fish later, she resolves to make a night of it — the tranquil waters of the lake have never failed to calm her, and if she actually manages to catch anything at this time when all the creatures of the lake must surely be sleeping, she can have a meal too. It would be a perfectly executed gambit, as her sister would probably call it, so Byleth turns to leave the hall to retrieve her fishing gear in much brighter spirits.

She has barely begun to open the door when something shoves against it from the other side and swings it wide open — then a voice shrieks in panic.

“G-G-GHOST!” it utters in a trembling shout. “S-stay back! I am NOT — oh.”

Byleth blinks in alarm. There is nothing on the other side of the door, but as she shifts her stance to grab at the dagger on her hip in anticipation of whatever ethereal threat has decided to attack her, her vision falls downward and registers a rather short white-haired girl staring at her with a mixture of relief and mortification.

“Oh,” says Byleth, relaxing.

“Uh, well,” says Lysithea. “Sorry! I — I didn’t realise it was you. Good evening! Hahaha!”

“Good evening,” replies Byleth curiously. “Where were you headed at this time of the night?”

“Oh, I left something in the dining hall, so I came by to fetch it,” says Lysithea. “But you don’t need to accompany me or anything! I’m perfectly fine on my own — really!” she adds insistently.

Byleth scratches her neck awkwardly. “I, uh, wasn’t planning on it,” she admits.

“Oh,” says Lysithea, blinking. “Apologies for assuming, but the truth is that everyone I come across asks if I’d like some company. They think I’ll be scared walking alone at night, but honestly, what do they all take me for? I’m fine! Perfectly and completely fine! It’s hardly different from daytime, you know. I’m not scared.”

“Right,” replies Byleth mildly. “Of course. Good evening, then,” she says cheerfully, and makes to leave past the girl.

She barely makes it two steps away before Lysithea calls out to her, saying, “Hey, wait! I…um, well, I… thought it might be nice to have some company while I search the hall for my item. It’s quite large, you know, so it might take me a while. The hall, that is, not my item! Shall we?”

Byleth turns back to inspect her skeptically.

“But to be abundantly clear, this has _nothing_ to do with my nonexistent fear of ghosts,” stresses Lysithea, with a slight tinge of red on her cheeks illuminated by the moonlight.

Byleth shrugs. It certainly couldn’t hurt, and maybe the sheer tedium of hunting for a lost item would relax her enough to finally be able to sleep. “I’d be happy to,” she says.

“Oh, you must be bored! Fantastic, then!” exclaims Lysithea, her shoulders slumping subtly in relief.

They enter the hall together, and Lysithea conjures a small, floating orb of light. Byleth eyes it curiously — it isn’t the fiery, crackling flame that she is accustomed to using that her father had taught her, but instead a smooth, cool blue sphere that glows soundlessly.

She doesn’t press for details, though, and inquires instead, “So what item are we looking for?”

“A spell tome,” replies Lysithea. “A treatise on _Luna_ , to be precise. It is quite the thick volume, but it is bound in black leather, so it may be hard to spot.” Byleth nods easily, and the two of them search for a while in the darkness that is only slightly offset by Lysithea’s magelight.

“Do you mind, um, filling the void with some chatter?” asks Lysithea sometime after Byleth has checked her twentieth chair. “Some find silence to be a bit unsettling, after all.”

“What would you have me say?” asks Byleth placidly, not pausing in her search. Lysithea doesn’t reply; when Byleth looks over at her, she appears to be working her mouth around a reply that she cannot quite seem to figure out.

“Okay, I confess, I _am_ scared of ghosts!” bursts out Lysithea eventually. “The Monastery is simply unnerving to me at night. So can we talk about something, please? Anything!”

Byleth places her chin in her hand, and gives the matter some serious thought. She considers Lysithea: her incredible command of Dark Magic, her frail constitution, and her incredible drive to learn as much as possible. Based on those traits, there is a myriad of possible topics of conversation that the girl would be interested in. And so:

“I’ve never been able to whistle,” confesses Byleth after several beats.

“Um,” says Lysithea. “That’s… not quite what I expected. I’m sorry to hear that, though. How do you try to do it?”

Byleth shrugs and blows fruitlessly into the air. Lysithea steps closer to her, and mimics her chin-in-hand pose with a ponderous look.

“Uh, this might seem fairly obvious, but — have you tried sucking air in instead of blowing it out?” she asks.

Byleth thinks back for a long moment to all the times in her life someone has tried to teach her how to whistle and realises:

“I — I haven’t,” she murmurs in shock. She tries it, and her mouth produces the most pathetically airy whistle she has ever heard.

But it is a whistle nonetheless, piercing and windy in all its glory, and she stares at Lysithea with a combination of disbelief and wonder.

“You’re a genius,” breathes Byleth, and tries the whistle again. It still works, much to her elation.

“Thank you,” replies Lysithea, smiling in satisfaction. Then her eyes stray past Byleth’s arm, and she exclaims, “Oh! There it is! I suppose I should head back now.”

Once she has collected her tome, Lysithea turns to walk out of the hall — then pauses, looking back at Byleth. “I appreciate that you didn’t treat me any differently just because I’m younger than the others,” she says softly.

Byleth tries to whistle a _you’re welcome_ in response, but decides she needs a lot more practice when Lysithea just stares at her in confusion.

“Um, right. Good night, then!” says Lysithea, and leaves.

Byleth walks out after her, shutting the door to the dining hall on her way out. She whistles jauntily all the way to the shed where the fishing gear is kept — and stops when she sees a rod missing. She contemplates the oddity for a moment, then shrugs and grabs her own rod. She chooses to forego the bait for tonight, since she isn’t likely to have much success anyway.

“Couldn’t sleep?” asks Byleth serenely, stepping out onto the fishing deck.

Flayn jumps slightly in surprise, but exhales in relief when she sees Byleth’s moonlit form. “Oh, dear,” she exclaims. “You startled me. However did you manage to move so soundlessly?”

“Years of practice,” deadpans Byleth. “Any luck?”

“No, no,” laughs Flayn. “In truth, I did not expect to — why, I even forewent a bucket for storing my catch tonight. As have you, I see!”

Byleth sits next to her, nodding. “I wouldn’t mind catching something, but fishing even without success always helps me relax,” she says, and casts her line as Flayn nods eagerly in agreement.

The two sit in silence for long minutes. Every so often, one of them reels back and recasts their line in the hopes of baiting something into action; but the lake remains otherwise undisturbed, reflecting the still light of the moon with barely a bubble breaking through.

“I noticed,” says Flayn casually, after what may have been an hour, “that your hair is tied up, and that you are wearing less than you usually do. Are you not cold?”

Byleth looks down at her thin training shirt and bare arms, then shrugs. “The cold has never bothered me much,” she says. “Besides, I was training, and the effort normally keeps me warm for a long time after.”

“I see,” replies Flayn with a curious lilt to her voice. “Were you… forgive me if this is too intrusive, but were you perhaps having trouble falling asleep? Is that why you were training so late at night, and have come to fish at this hour?”

“Yes,” says Byleth candidly. “I felt restless. Usually reading a book helps me fall asleep, but that sadly wasn’t the case today.”

“I see,” says Flayn, eyes widened in interest. She looks around, searching for something, then continues in a lower voice. “As for me, I, too, have trouble sleeping sometimes. The truth is… ah, but I am certain you do not wish to be bothered by my silly whimsies at such an hour,” she says, and chuckles at her own expense.

Byleth frowns, then shrugs. “I wouldn’t mind,” she adds mildly, in case Flayn isn’t looking.

“Oh? Well, I suppose I would not mind either, if you knew…” ponders Flayn. “The truth is — I am afraid of sleeping, you see. I am afraid that one day, I shall fall into a very deep sleep, and not wake again for years and years. And when I finally do, everyone I know and love will be gone, swallowed by the sands of time. I,” she forces out another airy chuckle, here, but Byleth hears the slight tremor in her voice, “I am sure it seems quite silly, but try as I might, I cannot shake this fear. But fishing calms me down, too, and somehow makes me dread it less.”

Byleth eyes Flayn curiously, then holds her rod between her arm and her body to free her hands. She can feel Flayn staring at her, but she does not speak and stares instead at her own hands, concentrating. A pressure at the base of her skull builds, and travels down her spine, then through her arms, until…

“There,” she says, exhaling in relief as a small bubble of silencing magic fizzes into existence around them. But it is much smaller than it usually is, and its shimmer is far less visible.

Flayn twitches in surprise at the bubble of silencing magic forming around them, then frowns at Byleth. “You must really be quite exhausted, since I have seen much faster from you before,” she accuses.

Byleth shrugs, and smiles at her. “It’s worth it to be able to speak plainly,” she says, and shifts her rod back to her hands. “Besides, if it exhausts me more, I’ll fall asleep faster.”

“If you say so,” says Flayn dubiously.

“I do,” replies Byleth. “But the reason I put it up is — you’re not the only person that has expressed such a fear to me before.”

“Who could possibly…” trails off Flayn with wide eyes, then says, “Ah. I am assuming it was your sister?”

Byleth nods, and Flayn sighs. “I thought as much,” she murmurs. “If I am to be truthful with you — Rhea has told you much of her own history, but she graciously left out the part that my father and I played in it. But… even though we are not quite related by blood despite our odd familial structure, I feel a strangely deep kinship with you, so I see no harm in telling you.”

She stares out at the lake, absently reeling and recasting, and recalls softly, “My father never had much of an interest in the affairs of our kind. The war he told you and Sothis of — with the Agarthans — was the last straw for him. He left to wander Fódlan soon after, and worked as a, if you can believe it, a storywriter for a library in Enbarr — back when the Empire did not exist and it was merely another city on the coast. He met my mother there, near the sea, and they fell in love.

“I was born there, not long after; though I remember little of Enbarr as it used to be — and from what depictions I have seen in the books, I am certain I would scarcely recognise it as it is now. But for many years, we lived near it on the coastline; my father taught me to love books, my mother taught me to love fish, and we lived perfectly happy, ordinary lives for uncountable years. But… it was not to last.”

“The war with Nemesis,” guesses Byleth somberly.

Flayn smiles sadly in reply. “The very same,” she confirms. “We had not learned of the tragic fates of our kind, isolated as we were; and once we entered the fray, we struggled badly due mainly to our lack of resources and preparedness to fight. They did not wish for me to participate, my mother and father, but I was a headstrong girl and they had not much of a choice since I had considerable talent in the Healing arts — and they required all they could get of that. And then… well, I am not quite sure what happened in the chaos, but I was trying to Heal a wounded soldier when I suddenly felt faint and decided to rest my eyes for a short while. I awakened to find that an entire millennium had turned, and that my mother was no longer with us.”

“So, you see,” finishes Flayn, “faced with the prospect of losing all that I have come to know and love once again… I do not relish the thought of sleep much.”

Byleth stares out at the lake. “Everything fades eventually,” she muses quietly. “But memory lasts longer than lives, I think. I can’t pretend to have given it too much thought, but — well, I’m not sure how much you know about the mercenary profession, but we’re not known for living the longest lives. So I live every day making memories, and I try to make them with others. Then even when my fire fades, someone else will still carry my torch for me.”

Flayn stares at her, starry eyed in wonder. “I see,” she breathes. “You are saying that I should live every day as though it were my last, and make as many people remember me as I possibly can.”

Byleth grins as the rod in her hand twitches. “Not… quite, but that works too,” she says.

“Hm,” says Flayn. “I… there is certainly much merit in your thoughts. I do suppose, though,” she says, wearing a secretive smile, “that it is quite hypocritical of me to be worried about being forgotten.”

“Oh?” queries Byleth, focusing on reeling in her catch exceedingly gently.

“The names we are known by now were not the ones we have always been called,” she reveals. “I am sure someone as astute as you may have guessed such, but nevertheless, in gratitude for your valuable advice today, I will reveal the name I was born with. It goes without saying that you must not reveal even a hint of it to anyone else, but my true name… is Cethleann.”

Byleth nearly drops the rod from her grip and almost gets slapped by her catch as it dangles perilously close to her face. The thick Fodlandy she has miraculously caught smacks with a wet _plop_ onto the deck beside her, and she quickly stabs it in the throat to end its misery and hold it in place as she turns to Flayn with eyes wide as dinnerplates.

“Cethleann?” she asks, slack-jawed. “Like… Saint Cethleann, the patron saint of fish?”

Flayn giggles. “The very same,” she admits, looking at the fish in admiration. “I do find it quite amusing when Garreg Mach’s fishing festival is held in Saint Cethleann’s honour at the request of Flayn, though they are one and the same. Of course, nobody knows that other than my father and Rhea, but it is fun to be on the inside of a joke, as it were.”

“Wow,” says Byleth, staring at her as she absently scales the fish she caught. “That’s… huh.”

Flayn giggles again, clearly enjoying the attention. “You seem quite surprised, though surely it could not have been that hard to guess, knowing what you know. There are statues and other depictions of Saint Cethleann everywhere, after all, and though obviously none of them can quite match up to my true splendour, they do bear a striking resemblance to me.”

“I never paid much attention to them, although now I realise I probably should have,” admits Byleth. “But… may I?” she says, as she skewers the now scaled fish with her dagger, and presents it to Flayn.

Flayn blinks in surprise at the offering. “It is _quite_ the marvellous specimen, but… what do you propose I do with it?” she inquires.

“Eat it with me,” replies Byleth. “This wouldn’t be the first catch I’ve dedicated to Cethleann, but it is the first one I can present to her in person.”

“Oh,” says Flayn, flushing slightly. “Why, that is positively enchanting of you! But the dining hall is closed,” she says, frowning slightly. “How do you propose we eat it? Surely not… raw?”

Byleth grins, and winks at Flayn. “It’s not bad eaten raw, but…” she trails off and digs out a small paper bag filled with salt from her pouch, sets it on the deck, then conjures a blazing hot ball of fire in her freed palm.

“Cooking fish on an open flame is one kind of memory we can make together,” she finishes, as Flayn stares in amazement at the sizzling fish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the author says therapist!Manuela rights
> 
> somehow the longest chapter yet is where the least amount of things actually happen — but I can't very well string together _two_ stormy parts of the story without some subtext-heavy-filler/fluff in between, can I? ;)


	12. The Magdred Incident

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Consequences present themselves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alt title: local amnesiac goddess moonlights as unlicensed therapist and develops a reputation for making girls cry
> 
> (unrelated) cw: uncensored h-handholding 😳

Claude gracelessly wipes the sweat from his brow, and pauses to catch his breath for a moment — then begins pulling at another clump of weeds in earnest.

“Can’t believe that old goat assigned me to weeding duty for just _talking_ to Flayn,” he mutters in annoyance. “Sheesh, tough crowd.”

“Hm?” pipes up Dimitri from somewhere to his left. “Did you say something, Claude?”

“Nothing, Your Highness,” sighs Claude. “How much of your section have you weeded?”

“A fair amount, I believe,” replies Dimitri, with notes of pride ringing in his voice. Claude looks over and sees the circle of thoroughly ploughed grass around the blond prince, and has to do a double take.

“You, uh, didn’t really go easy on those poor weeds, huh,” he remarks.

Dimitri blinks, and frowns down at the grass in consternation. “Was I too harsh?” he asks worriedly.

“Nah, I don’t think so,” reassures Claude cheerfully. “It’ll probably grow a lot better now that you’ve so exhaustively tilled it.”

“Oh, good,” smiles Dimitri, relaxing. “Say, Claude…” he says, trailing off.

“Yeah?” grunts Claude, pulling fruitlessly at a particularly stubborn weed.

“Um, this may seem like an odd question, but you seem like a well-travelled sort of person,” he says, sounding oddly nervous. “Have you, perchance… ever heard of a variety of edible plant that grows among the weeds?”

Claude blinks at the non-sequitur, and pauses in his exertion. “Uh, pardon my ineloquence, but… what?”

“Dedue insisted that I refrain from eating them myself to find out, but it seems like such a waste to merely throw these away,” says Dimitri, gesturing at the clumps in his hands. “I asked Professor Jeralt, and he said he’d enjoyed many a weed in his youth, but he wouldn’t elaborate on the precise variety when I asked,” he adds, frowning.

Claude has a sudden flash of sympathy for the prince’s retainer, and quickly scoots over to Dimitri, who is eyeing the weeds in his hand with a frighteningly determined sort of look. He quickly grabs Dimitri’s hand just as he has started to raise it to his mouth, and gets a frown in return.

“I don’t think these were the kind of weeds the Professor was referring to,” says Claude hastily, trying futilely to press down on the man’s surprisingly strong grip. “Not to sound like a mother hen, but I gotta agree with Dedue on this one — it’s probably a really bad idea to eat these.”

“Oh,” says Dimitri, lowering his hand and staring at it. “I… hm. How do you do it, Claude?”

Claude keeps a cautious grip on the man’s hand, just in case, and stares at Dimitri in confusion. “Do… what exactly?”

Dimitri gestures animatedly with his free hand. “Your ridiculously easygoing and casual demeanour!” he exclaims, agitated. Claude leans back in surprise, but Dimitri continues unabated, “You inspire others to loyalty so effortlessly, and yet you don’t seem to demand anything more than simple friendship… I have tried on multiple occasions to beseech everyone around me to be at ease and informal, but nobody seems willing to treat me as they would any other friend! After all, you yourself are the up-and-coming leader of the Leicester Alliance, and I would argue that that is no less a rank than the Crown Prince of Faerghus, and yet… nobody even seems willing to refer to me by name other than my childhood friends, like everyone does so easily with you. Not even you, although at least you don’t treat me any differently despite it.”

Claude swallows apprehensively. “I’ll start using your name if you want,” he says. Dimitri blinks back at him, surprised. “Dimitri,” adds Claude to prove his point, barely managing to sound unaffected.

“Thank you, Claude,” breathes the man in question, smiling so gratefully that Claude has to avert his eyes at the guilt that his conscience shoves at him. “I… I must apologise for my outburst, just now.”

Claude shakes his head to wave it off, but Dimitri continues insistently, “No, really. It is just that… Ashe has been rather upset, of late, but all my attempts to get him to open up to me have been rebuffed. He insists that his worries are too unimportant for someone like me, but… is it so wrong to want to check up on someone I think of as a good friend?”

Claude frowns, and wonders exactly how much undiagnosed trauma runs rampant in Fódlan’s crop of Officer’s Academy attendees.

“Not at all,” promises Claude. “But it’s likely to be difficult for any friend to open up if they don’t wanna burden you, so you could just start with an icebreaker next time.”

“An icebreaker?” queries Dimitri curiously. “I am not sure I follow.”

“Well, if you lead by telling them something insignificant that’s worrying you, they might be more likely to empathise and tell you their burdens in return,” explains Claude. “It’s not quite as simple as that, sometimes, but I’d say that’s a good place to start. Although, as far as Ashe is concerned,” adds Claude, lowering his voice, “I think I might know what’s bothering him. He’s the adopted son of Lord Lonato of Faerghus, right?”

“Yes?” confirms Dimitri questioningly. Claude grimaces.

“Well,” he sighs, “Professor Hanneman just told me about the mission the Deer have been assigned this week. Apparently, Lord Lonato has joined the Western Church’s rebellion, and we’re being sent after bunch of Knights to help them clean up after they’re finished crushing the rebellion. Given what that probably means for Ashe’s adoptive father… well, I can understand why he might be upset.”

Dimitri stares at him in horror. “I… that’s terrible. Surely there must be some way to avert this — this impending disaster!”

Claude shrugs. “If you wanna take it up with the Archbishop, be my guest,” he says. “Probably won’t do ya much good, though.”

Dimitri doesn’t even balk at the suggestion, much to Claude’s surprise, and only frowns contemplatively. Claude nervously hopes he hasn’t accidentally spearheaded an international incident.

But Dimitri only shakes his head eventually, not elaborating. “I’ll consider it, at least,” is all he says before he smiles in gratitude again. “Thank you, Claude, for helping. And for telling me about your class’ mission.”

“Don’t mention it,” replies Claude cheerily. Dimitri lapses into silence again, although it seems like he still wants to say something else.

“Yeah?” prods Claude gently.

“Um… it’s nothing. Just that… a-and I’m not saying it does not feel quite nice, but we haven’t finished weeding yet, and your hand is, um,” stammers Dimitri.

“ _Oh_!” exclaims Claude in surprise and embarrassment as he hastily releases his grip on Dimitri’s hand, and thanks his lucky stars his tan skin doesn’t blush easily.

* * *

“I don’t want to argue with you,” mumbles Rhea, looking away.

Sothis folds her arms in incredulity from where she sits across Rhea, at the small table in the gardens of the Monastery’s secluded third floor. Rhea does not seem inclined to elaborate and elects instead to sip at her tea, eyes still averted. Sothis sighs and sips disinterestedly at hers as well, before setting her cup down and leaning forward.

“I have no interest in it either, but you refuse to — look. I was a _mercenary_ before I joined the Officer’s Academy,” she stresses. “I fail to see how this could possibly be more dangerous than escorting nobles with assassins after their heads, or storming mansions and castles, or hunting down thieves and bandits. Which, might I remind you, you did _not_ think too dangerous for any of your students mere weeks ago.”

Rhea does not seem to think much of this argument, if her downturned mouth is any indication. “That may be so,” she says, meeting Sothis’ eyes again, “but the Agarthans are no mere bandits, Mother. They have… they have killed you before, even if indirectly. I do not know how much of their _technology_ has survived with them, but if it is even a sliver of their former capability, they are extremely dangerous.”

Sothis rolls her eyes. “I _was_ asleep, you know. A toddler with nothing but a cup of water could probably have killed me in that state.”

Rhea winces. “I suppose,” she accepts dubiously. “But… to simply walk in and negotiate a ceasefire with the rebels? They denounced the Central Church rather thoroughly and have been fighting for weeks, so I doubt they will readily agree, if they agree at all. And… I do hope you appreciate the weight of the other danger, too.”

“I do, which is why,” explains Sothis patiently, “we are going with the available Knights of Seiros _and_ our mercenary band as backup. They will be enough to get all of us away as safely as possible, if these mysterious Agarthans you’ve rather readily accepted as your true enemies are even there at all. And if they are not, we will have the chance to put an end to a needless conflict and avoid burning some very important bridges for you.”

“For me?” blinks Rhea, confused.

“You _are_ still the Archbishop of this Church, are you not?” inquires Sothis rhetorically. “Your reputation only stands to improve if you demonstrate the kindness and humility you’ve been preaching to the masses since you established this entire thing.”

“But—” protests Rhea weakly.

“No,” interrupts Sothis gently. “Like I’ve said before… you need to let go of the influence you hold over humanity, Seiros.”

Rhea’s teacup clatters noisily against her pitcher, and she stares at Sothis numbly. “My — my name. H-how did you…” she trails off, bright green eyes the size of dinnerplates.

Sothis _hmphs_ and drums her fingers on the table. “There weren’t terribly many conclusions left to reach after you told us your story, you realise,” she deadpans. “Saint Seiros is the only historical figure that fits the actions you attributed to yourself during the establishment of the Church.”

Rhea looks away and wipes silently at her eyes, and Sothis frowns at her. “I — I apologise,” says Rhea thickly. “Just — I have not been called that in a very long time. And not by you for longer still.”

Sothis sighs again, and scrapes her chair back as she stands. Rhea turns her gaze back to her with wide eyes, then away again as Sothis approaches her calmly — then looks down and lifts a hand to her heart in shock as Sothis kneels in front of her.

“Mother, _what_ —” begins Rhea in outrage.

“Shh,” interrupts Sothis softly, and lightly grasps one of Rhea’s hands in her own. She examines it for a moment as it trembles in her grip, then sighs a third time and clasps it tightly.

“Seiros,” she says again, looking firmly at Rhea, who stares at her as if spellbound. “I wish I could call you my daughter with the feeling it deserves, but I cannot speak for the Sothis that I was, that had you, and loved you, and died for you. I could try, but that wouldn’t be fair to her memory, and more importantly — it wouldn’t be fair to you. You deserve more than to be called that in such a hollow manner by someone who can’t remember her own child.

“But,” she stresses, and squeezes the hand in her grip as Rhea looks like she is about to interrupt, “you _do_ deserve family, even if that family doesn’t remember who you are to her. That is why I don’t mind it when you call me your mother, or when you dote over me in a frankly rather overbearing way, or even when you snoop around asking everyone what I have been up to. _Yes_ , I noticed,” she adds with a roll of her eyes when Rhea flushes in embarrassment. “Honestly, the nerve…” mutters Sothis in annoyance, before continuing more gently. “But I accept all of that from you because you deserve to have someone to give it to. Which is why you need to accept something from me, too.”

“Which — which is?” rasps Rhea.

“The truth,” replies Sothis with a sad smile. “All of humanity did not kill me, Seiros, and the few of them who dealt the deathblow are dead now, thanks to you; nothing but ash. And I am here now, alive if missing my memory of whatever happened in my past life — but I would not trade that for much, if anything. If you can accept that I live and breathe again, then you can let go of your mistrust of humankind, and let us reach our full potential. Yes, _us_ ,” repeats Sothis when Rhea starts slightly, and draws back her untied hair to point out a perfectly rounded pair of ears. “I doubt I am anything other than a regular, red-blooded human now. Which means I will be gone someday, too, and likely much sooner than you will. But before that day comes…” she trails off, and watches Rhea shed a few silent tears and swallow in apprehension.

“Before that day comes, I will show you what it is to live life as _you_ ,” vows Sothis. “You will always be my daughter, but it is time that you learned to be yourself, too.”

For a long moment, Rhea does not speak — she only trembles where she sits, looking down at Sothis with her hand extended and trapped in Sothis’ grip. Then she slides down the chair in a fluid motion, buries her head into Sothis’ shoulder, and cries silently.

“I am not ready,” confesses Rhea in a whisper a long time after her tears have subsided, as Sothis holds her gently with aching knees.

“That’s okay,” whispers back Sothis. “We’ve got time.”

* * *

Ashe drops a letter from between numb fingers and begins to sprint as fast as he can through the dormitories and towards the Black Eagles classroom.

He doesn’t acknowledge anyone on his way, even as he dimly registers Annette wave at him, or Sylvain give out a _woah, hey_ , as he rushes past the man. His singular thought is to hope that he makes it in time before they depart — he doesn’t know how old the letter is, but he sends his most fervent prayers to the Goddess that it hadn’t been too delayed in its journey from Castle Gaspard.

Eventually, huffing, panting, and having narrowly dodged many collisions, Ashe rounds the corner to the classrooms… and falters, staring at the large gathering of people who distinctly _don’t_ appear to be students, milling about in front of it.

The not-students form a conspicuously cacophonous group, weaving and darting to and fro. Ridiculously armed men and women in shades of blue and brown stand in pairs or trios — some of them chat aimlessly as they sharpen wicked-looking blades, some of them huddle around what appear to be maps and pieces of withered parchment, and some even absently play card games with each other, lounging against the walls of the Officer’s Academy.

Ashe stares at the group, and wonders what on earth happened to the Black Eagles — and why they seem to have been utterly inundated with mercenaries.

“Hey, kid,” says a cheery voice from somewhere above him.

Ashe turns and comes face-to-face with the chest of what must be the tallest woman he has ever met.

He flushes instantly and looks up at the woman. Her face is bronzed and lightly scarred, her eyes and lips are brightly painted, and a tail of long crimson hair swishes past her toned shoulders. An amused eyebrow rises up slowly from above her pair of warm amber eyes as Ashe continues staring.

“S-sorry! Um, I was looking for the Black Eagles,” he stutters.

“And why might that be?” she queries, crossing her arms.

“I want to join them on their mission,” he insists, determinedly. “I — I know where they’re going, and who they’re going to negotiate with, and I can help.”

“Hmm,” hums the woman. “Well, you’re a bit scrawny for my liking — oh, cheer up, I know not everyone can be as majestic as I am. Whoever you want to talk to is probably inside there, though,” she says, jerking her head in the direction of the classroom.

Ashe smiles at her in gratitude and relief. “Thank you, um…” he trails off.

“Nab,” she replies. “Lil' boar is what everyone ‘round here calls me, though.”

“B-boar?” questions Ashe nervously, and gets an enigmatic smile in response.

“Just an affectionate nickname,” beams Nab. “Good luck convincing them, kid. You’ll likely need it.”

Ashe hastily thanks her again, and manages to squirm his way inside the crowded room.

The inside has significantly fewer mercenaries lounging about casually. Most of them instead sit rigidly, turned towards the front of the room in interest. Ashe blinks in surprise as he sees Professor Jeralt at the front, drawing something on the blackboard, instead of Professor Manuela like he had expected. The woman in question stands off to one corner, talking to a tall, bearded, and scarred man in low tones. Ashe blinks in surprise, then continues forward through the throng of people — and finally spots the familiar visage of Caspar.

“Hey,” whispers Ashe when he is close enough. Caspar turns to him with a surprised look, then grins instantly.

“Hey!” whispers Caspar back, much to Ashe’s surprise. He really hadn’t thought the blue-haired boy was capable of discretion, but it seems Caspar is full of surprises.

“Professor Jeralt is devising tactics with his mercenaries for the mission, and I wanted to go along with them to see what it’s all about,” rambles Caspar excitedly. “The others are all in the Blue Lions classroom next door though. Dimitri didn’t seem to mind, since you guys weren’t using it anyway.”

Ashe thanks him, and then hurries back out to his own classroom.

The inside of this one is much quieter, and devoid of any mercenaries. The rest of the Black Eagles — even Bernadetta, surprisingly, though she slinks as close to the door as she possibly can — are gathered here instead, watching Sothis intently as she stands behind the Professor’s desk and demonstrates some sort of… board game?

 _Not a game_ , Ashe realises after another minute or two of watching. The board is set up in squares with little wooden figures dotted around it, and Sothis advances each unit a certain number of squares, then marks down something on a parchment with a contemplative noise as she does. _A replica._

What impresses Ashe the most is how every single housemate of hers seems perfectly content to watch her in silent fascination; they seem so starkly different to how Ashe’s own house behaves that he is almost tempted to ask Professor Manuela if he can transfer over. He shakes the thought off and prepares to interrupt, even though something inside him is strangely reluctant to disturb what looks like a very precise process.

“Hm,” says Sothis suddenly, making Ashe start slightly. His shoulders slump in relief; perhaps she has finished. “Ferdinand, would you say — ah.”

Ashe sweats slightly at the sudden gazes levelled in his direction by every member of the crowd as Sothis breaks off her question to look at him instead, but bravely forges forward with his explanation. His family cannot wait.

“I want to join your mission,” he blurts, looking at Sothis, and then shifting his gaze to Edelgard. She simply eyes him back evenly. He swallows nervously and continues in earnest, “I — I’m not sure if you’re aware, but Lonato is my adopted father. If… if anyone can convince him to see reason and — and negotiate with him, I can.”

“I don’t see a problem with it,” says Edelgard eventually, “as long as Professor Manuela agrees.”

“She does,” carries a voice from the doorway before Ashe can even think about sprinting back to the other classroom. He turns around to see the woman herself walking towards him, a gentle smile on her face. He bows in gratitude to her, earning himself a laugh.

“Now, now, none of that,” she chuckles, putting a hand on his shoulder to straighten him back up. “We do need all the help we can get, you know. It’s not as if the Church has ever attempted anything of this nature before, and the circumstances are certainly… unique. You would help us much more than we could help you.”

Ashe swallows nervously. “I only want to make sure my family is safe,” he says softly.

The Professor’s eyes crinkle in sympathy. “We’ll do our best,” she vows, as Ashe hears a slight _thunk_ behind him. He turns to look at the board on the Professor’s desk, which now sports an additional wooden figurine.

“You favour the bow, yes?” queries Sothis calmly, quill and parchment poised to write.

* * *

“What exactly did Dad say he was going to be doing?” wonders Byleth.

Sothis scowls, and shrugs. “He wouldn’t elaborate, the absolute squirrel,” she mutters in exasperation. “Just that he needed to _explore the Monastery’s seedy underbelly_.”

Byleth blinks. “I don’t even know what to begin to make of that… and since when did the Monastery have a seedy underbelly? And why in Fódlan have we not been invited?!” she exclaims in indignation.

“Perhaps you are not seedy enough yourselves to secure an invitation,” jokes Hubert darkly from somewhere beside them.

The sisters turn as one to stare at him.

“Certainly eerie enough, however,” he murmurs as he looks away, appearing disconcerted.

The sisters covertly bump fists in satisfaction.

“Ready, boss?” rumbles Jahar the quartermaster, who also doubles as the second-in-command after the Eisners.

Sothis shakes her head in the negative. “Final check,” she promises him, and he nods amiably. She turns her gaze back to the landscape in front of them, and glowers at it one last time in frustration.

Magdred Way is disappointingly oppressive, especially given the days it took their party to travel this far from the Monastery. The faint sound of the rushing river adds to the low, stifling hum of the slight swamp that dots the path through to the Castle of Gaspard. It is almost entirely overshadowed by a scent of smoke and fire that clings to the air, however, telling the tale of a battle fought here recently — and the telltale coppery tang of blood that tickles the back of Sothis’ throat reveals shadows of the bloodshed that still occurs beyond Magdred Way, where the fight between the Knights and the rebels still rages. But here, she cannot see much evidence of it because beyond even the darkness of the hour before dawn, the area is coated in a damp, cloying fog that positively _reeks_ of the kinds of darker magics Byleth has long been forbidden to experiment with.

From where the combined forces of the available Knights of Seiros and Jeralt’s Mercenaries have made camp, the looming shadow of Castle Gaspard can barely be seen in the distance, and telltale pinpricks of light that give away the presence of Lonato’s militia shine in front of it. Sothis can tell, based on maps that Ashe has drawn of the area, where the greatest danger of ambush may await them in the sparse woodland that gives this place variety — so the militia do not worry her much. The negotiation, too, is meant to take place between Professor Manuela and Lord Lonato in the exact middle of the Castle and the Black Eagles’ camp, so the errant Lord is nearly as vulnerable as they are.

But the murk that surrounds the place makes her think again of Rhea’s warnings about their ancient enemy, and how they would stop at nothing for their vengeance against her. They could be hidden in the mist without anyone the wiser even at present, waiting until they can surround both armies utterly — and she would be powerless to stop them. They could move silently and ruthlessly, killing all she has come to love before they could even realise their peril.

 _Never again_ , she thinks in promise, clenching her fist unconsciously, and gives Jahar the signal.

“Ready,” she adds for the benefit of her housemates, as the mercenaries take up formation.

Sothis dearly hopes their precautions are enough. Rhea has given her a number of Warp Stones — devices that can be shattered with an incantation to Warp anyone within a certain distance back to safety in Garreg Mach. Each group of Knights and Mercenaries, scattered about the mist, carries at least one, and Sothis herself carries another. She’d made Edelgard take one, too — the Imperial Princess would surely be one of the more valuable targets for an enemy to strike at, and the thought of the solemn and resolute woman she has come to call a friend being harmed is… not palatable in the slightest to her.

As soon as their forces have set up at the optimal points to guarantee maximum _Warp_ coverage for them all, the four Black Eagles and the solitary Blue Lion chosen to present the ceasefire follow in formation beside Professor Manuela as she takes the lead towards their designated meeting spot. Edelgard and Hubert line the Professor’s left, and Sothis and Byleth line her right. Ashe, meanwhile, dances in the Professor’s shadow — a bow is slung over his shoulder, and his hand is on a sword as he watches their backs cautiously.

The party turns through a bend on the path to the tent set up for the negotiations. The fog thins out slightly, here; enough so that Sothis can barely make out that they are passing through farmland, and that the occupants of the various shabby huts that line the fields are staring down their group as they pass. Professor Manuela seems to see them too, as she glances about anxiously, and apparently decides to fix a tight smile on her face and wave as they slowly approach their destination. Sothis cannot tell if anyone can even see the Professor’s token effort, but if they do, they do not show it — none of the shadowy figures near the doorways of the farmhouses appear to move even slightly in response.

A current of dread tingles down Sothis’ spine.

 _Something is wrong_.

Edelgard must sense it too, because she shifts her stance slightly, even as she continues to walk forward. Ashe only glances around, seemingly too nervous to talk — but if he has noticed anything amiss he does not say, and Sothis cannot tell. It would be hard for even one as familiar with the area as him to judge, though; the mutinous fog clings so heavily to everything that it is hard to tell if some of the figures Sothis spies are trees or people. Hubert and Byleth don’t indicate much beyond their general unease — but Sothis can imagine how overwhelmed their senses must be, if even she can smell the acrid tang of the magicked mist.

But they have no option but to rally forth, since the negotiation tent stands menacingly only a few paces ahead. Two soldiers in gleaming armour hold up the flaps as they approach, and gesture for them to enter. Professor Manuela pauses at the entrance, steels her shoulders, and calmly ducks beneath the threshold.

The inside of the tent is a distinctly Kingdom-styled affair. A bare table with only a sheet of parchment, a quill, and an inkpot sits in the middle. On one side of it is a small, straight-backed empty wooden chair that looks highly uncomfortable to sit in for any length of time — and on the other, flanked by two white-masked and black-robed figures, sits Lord Lonato.

Sothis registers Hubert and Edelgard both stiffen in alarm from the corner of her eye. But they say nothing, even though they stay rooted to the spot as Professor Manuela walks forward with a smile and honeyed words. Ashe peeks over the Professor’s shoulder at this, and greets Lord Lonato with an enthusiastic smile.

Sothis blinks in alarm as the man’s stern face goes ashen at seeing his adopted son. He opens his mouth wordlessly, staring at Professor Manuela, then at Ashe. “You… why are you here, Ashe?” he croaks.

Ashe’s face hardens. “To convince you to stop, Lonato,” he says firmly.

Lord Lonato only shakes his head weakly. “You should not have… I am sorry, Ashe,” he pleads. Every single instinct in Sothis’ body is telling her to run at his reaction, and she dimly registers Byleth preparing a magical shield at her side—

—before a reverberating _thunk_ impacts the centre of her chest, and she looks down to see a small bolt sticking out from the folds of her armour. She looks back up to see one of Lonato’s guards, who has unmasked himself, holding a small crossbow in his hands.

Sothis stares into the man’s bone-white eyes as he smirks in sick satisfaction — and then she collapses onto the ground.

…

_There goes my Warp Stone._

From her prone position on the floor, she hears Hubert hiss in challenge, finally unfrozen as he throws a dark ball of magic at her assailant. Sothis uses his attention-grabbing ploy to mask the sound of her picking up the nearby chair and hurling it with all her strength at the other masked figure.

He reels and stumbles backwards in surprise at the impact, but does not go down. Byleth has abandoned her shield to send a booming ball of Fire trailing after him, but the white-haired crossbow-wielder who attempted to assassinate her seems to be proficient at the magical arts, too, and raises a barrier that she has never seen before. Professor Manuela attempts to knock it down with a spell of some sort, but it does not budge even as the golden beam of light from her hands slams against it with a deafening _gong_.

“Lonato!” cries Ashe, pleading. But Lonato does not move, paralysed into his chair—

“—Edelgard!” shouts Sothis. Her house leader still holds the other undamaged Warp Stone, and she needs to use it _now_ — they are clearly severely outmatched in this ambush, and by now reinforcements for the enemy must be due to arrive. Edelgard, mercifully, shakes herself out of whatever stupor had overcome her; she digs out the stone and throws it at her feet, screaming the incantation in a terrified pitch that Sothis has never even dreamed of hearing from her before.

The Warp circle forms instantly beneath them and envelops them all. Sothis sighs in relief, and prepares to wonder exactly how their mission went so wrong.

Half a second later, her would-be assassin sends a jet of Wind at Edelgard that almost knocks the woman clean off her feet, even as Sothis stretches out a hand in horror. Edelgard stumbles precariously but manages to regain her footing, and Sothis scrambles off the ground to catch her hand. Her fingers close around the gossamer silk of Edelgard’s glove just as Byleth prepares a shield.

The other mage, still masked, throws out a second scythe of Wind a bare moment after the first, and it tears through Byleth’s shield like ricepaper and sends her crashing into Sothis. A third cast immediately after cuts into Edelgard with a sickening tearing sound that leaves Sothis hopelessly trying to hold onto the gloved hand in hers as it slips from her grip. For a terse moment as Edelgard is still being forced back by the spell that hit her, Sothis meets her eyes. The sheer terror she sees within makes her grip tighten in an attempt at keeping her safe. _I will not lose you._

A fourth gust of Wind hits them both and tosses them cleanly out of the Warp circle. Sothis grunts as they hit the floor and tries to roll into a fighting stance — but the hand in hers shifts, and then removes itself entirely. Sothis has barely manages to turn to look at Edelgard in shock before she gets shoved _hard_ back into the ground within the circle — just as a fifth and final Wind soars over her head and slams into Edelgard.

“How nice of you to offer yourself instead, dear niece,” is all Sothis catches before green flecks of Rhea’s magic whisk her away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am so sorry
> 
> (also yes, that was in fact a nabooru cameo!)


	13. Wrath Strike

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The morning bell heralds a dawn stained crimson.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Massive thanks to my good friend H who helped me get over a major bout of writer’s block with this chapter so I could make it what it is!
> 
> cw: graphic violence

The sun rises above the peaks of the Oghma Mountains, and far above the gleaming white roof stones of Garreg Mach Monastery within, a bell rings. Its gong echoes past the spires, past the ramparts, and past the dwellings of the Monastery’s denizens, until it reaches their ears and heralds the dawn of a new day.

In its journey through the aether, the bell sounds down, too, into the grounds in front of the Officer’s Academy. It reaches the ears of those tensely gathered here in wait of the Warp circles present to glow green — but for the past three hours, there has been no telltale spark of magic that would warn of their activation.

Close to the Golden Deer classroom, an orange-haired woman shivers, then grumbles at the white-haired girl next to her.

“Yeesh, it’s a bit colder than usual today, don’t you think?” mutters Leonie.

“It certainly is,” quietly agrees Lysithea, who is bundled up so thoroughly that she is hardly recognisable from underneath the swathe of coats she is encumbered with.

“Hey…” muses Leonie, seeming oddly agitated. “Do you think it has to do with whatever magic went down in the catacombs yesterday? With all those monks, and something about a beast?”

Close to the two chattering Deer, another student stands. Her light blue locks cascade over her eyes and shadow them from the world, and her slightly hunched over stance and bowed head give her the appearance of one who wishes to fade eternally into the background. But despite her apparent nervousness, Marianne listens attentively — and seems to almost startle when Leonie mentions a beast.

“Professor Jeralt and some people I’ve never seen before were in there, along with Lady Rhea, where they fought some mercenaries,” replies Leonie. Marianne seems to relax slightly. “Didn’t you hear? Apparently, there was a huge commotion and a rogue monk tried to summon a beast that he said would eat Lady Rhea, and then I heard that Professor Jeralt and the strangers beat them all up!”

Lysithea stares at her in disbelief, and Marianne makes an aborted hand-motion towards her face as if to stifle a gasp.

“But the Professor refuses to confirm anything, and those strangers that were with him gave me the slip before I could ask… I almost got lost in those tunnels beneath the monastery when I tried to follow them,” grumbles Leonie. “And there’s no way I’m asking Lady Rhea. She’s _scary._ ”

“She hardly seems _that_ bad,” frowns Lysithea. Leonie gazes at Lysithea doubtfully and only shakes her head.

“Anyway,” says Leonie, “I bet—”

The Warp circle closest to the three flashes; first a pallid yellow, and then a few moments later, a piercingly bright shade of green. The students blink out the spots in their eyes, and then stare at the five figures the circle has deposited into a heap on the ground.

Hubert is the first to extract himself from the pile. He does so with great haste, pulling himself off of Professor Manuela frantically and half-stumbling into a fighting stance — but then he seems to realise where he is, eyes widening.

He _howls_ in rage.

“I’ll kill them,” he snarls. “They will _pay_ for what — I’ll —” he sputters off into incoherence.

Byleth is the next to rise, helping Professor Manuela free Ashe’s trapped form in the process. Sothis rises on her own, seeming oddly dazed — she stares at what looks like white cloth gathered into a small clump in her hand. “I tried,” she mumbles to herself. “She… twice…?”

“Edelgard…” says Ashe in a quietly horrified tone, even as other Warp circles begin flashing and depositing mercenaries and Knights of Seiros alike onto Garreg Mach’s grounds.

From the other end of the Officer’s Academy, a Professor clad in the brutal leathers of a mercenary comes running in. His stance makes him seem as dependable as ever — but in his face, there is a weariness that has not often been seen, and to those that know him well, his eyes seem to be haunted by a bleakness that has seldom inhabited them.

Behind him, to everyone’s surprise, trails the Archbishop of the Monastery. She is clad as ever in her usual unwieldy dress, even as she makes a rare visit beyond the Monastery’s Cathedral — and yet she still appears as graceful as ever, even as she keeps pace with the Professor. The shadow that haunts the Professor’s eyes is less obvious in hers, but it is present all the same; for her, it manifests in the slight downturn of her lips and the shallow angle of her usually piercing gaze.

The duo come to a stop next to the first Warp circle to have activated. The Professor is the first to frown and blink at alarm when he notices five people where there should have been six.

“Edelgard was captured,” says Byleth tersely at her father’s questioning gaze. The usual blankness of her gaze feels deeper now, somehow; it feels less like a deadpan stare elicited for humour, and more like the yawning of an abyss behind which lurks nothing.

(Perhaps it is that the sparkle usually present in her eyes has dulled to nothing but ash.)

“ _You,_ ” growls Hubert at the Archbishop. She blinks in surprise and dismay. “This was one of your _plots_.”

“My dear,” she says gently. “I know how the separation from your Lady must hurt. But I assure you, I would never wish for ill upon any of my students for anything, and we—”

“Hah,” sneers Hubert. “A likely story! Do you _really_ expect me to believe—”

“Hubert,” interrupts Sothis softly. He pauses and turns to glower at her. She still stares at the glove in her hand, but looks at it for only a moment longer before she finally turns her head up to meet his eyes.

Multitudes are exchanged in that meeting of eyes, and Hubert’s anger slips from his face like a shadow cast by a passing cloud. It is not immediately apparent why, but one more familiar with his heart of hearts might suggest that it is because the fiery steel behind Sothis’ gaze is oddly reminiscent of the one he has sworn his being to.

“We will get her back,” she says in the tones of a Goddess’ decree. He stares at her for a moment longer before he nods and turns to the Archbishop — and then scrambles out of the way as the circle underneath his feet flashes a bright green again, to reveal:

A tall, blonde woman, clad in gleaming white armour. Her deep blue orbs are set in a tanned, smooth visage, framed by unruly cascades of short hair, and her hands and shoulders are both occupied completely.

In one hand, she holds the most fearsome claymore many in that courtyard have ever witnessed. Its bone-white branched blade glows a faint red, even as it scrapes slightly against the ground and the blood oozing off it drips onto the grass.

On her other shoulder, she holds a tall, heavy-set man in a noble’s light battle armour. He struggles slightly against her, and she drops him onto the ground with a look of profound disgust.

“Lonato!” cries Ashe in tones of relief and confusion, and stumbles forward to embrace him. Hubert ignores the man on the ground to stare at the Knight. She shrugs at his unasked question.

“Sorry, kid,” shrugs Catherine. “They’d already taken her away by the time I got to that tent. I’m surprised they left him behind,” gesturing at the man on the ground, “but it seems we misread their objective with this ambush…”

Hubert scowls, but nods stiffly. The man on the ground, who seems to have regained his wits, sends a murderous glare at the Archbishop.

“Lonato,” demands Ashe quietly, ignoring the direction of his gaze. “If — if your allies abandoned you, then where are Eren and Arya?”

“Ashe,” mutters Lonato, looking rattled as he turns to Ashe in horror. “I — they promised to keep them safe. As long as I — nobody truly realised what those mages were planning, but I swear to you, if I had known—”

“We will get your siblings back,” interjects Professor Manuela, speaking for the first time in the conversation. “And Edelgard, too. I…” she trails off, looking nearly despondent for a half-moment, before her gaze firms again. “It was my duty to protect my student, and I failed. I promised that I would help you protect your siblings, and I failed. The least I can do is help make it right,” she says.

Hubert scowls again, and Sothis rubs her brow in consternation. He opens his mouth to say something—

—and pauses when a bell tolls.

Another follows it.

And another, and another.

The sounds build, and then rebuild; they race into a deafening cacophony that is almost debilitatingly loud — hands fly to ears, and alarmed gazes search around in disorientation for the source of the sound.

The Archbishop seems unaffected, however. She does not clutch at her ears, or look around aimlessly; she turns smoothly to frown directly at the parapets that house the various bells of the Monastery. Her expression seems to indicate nothing amiss, even as the discordant bells seem to build in amplitude, and her eyes remain narrowed in concentration — until they widen in horror instead.

“What do I see stirring about that gibbet?” booms a guttural voice that shears through the ringing bells like a scythe through hay. It issues forth from everywhere and nowhere, and casts terror into the hearts of those who hear it — in the image of a bog, long forgotten.

“That which I hear… was it the cathedral and those within, who will be forfeit to you?” the voice ponders in an abyssal timbre. “Or was it the head of Fell Star, which you will place on a pike?”

The look of apoplectic _fury_ that descends on the Archbishop’s face is a sight none living have ever beheld before then. But despite it she seems helpless except to stare at the parapets and wait for the voice to speak again.

It does.

“You have until the next rise of the sun to choose,” croons the voice a final time, and all the bells stop ringing as abruptly as they started; all, save for one. The lone bell keeps issuing its soft, horrifying ostinato; as if to permanently etch itself into the minds of all those that hear it.

“Who is at the Cathedral?” demands the Archbishop frantically.

“The students should all be accounted for,” replies Professor Hanneman. “But some of the monks will be there as they always are, and I believe Seteth was also overseeing the repairs to the Saints’ statues…”

The Archbishop stares at him in mute horror. “Flayn?” she pleads.

“Out fishing, I believe,” responds Claude grimly. “She won’t take this well, but she should be safe.”

The Archbishop doesn’t quite seem to know how to handle the news, but Professor Jeralt gently grips her shoulder in comfort. She almost startles at the contact, and turns to stare at him. “He can handle himself much better than the students can,” assures the Professor. “Even so, we’ll have him free before you know it.”

“W-where’s Hilda?” stammers a plaintive voice. It fades into a silence punctuated only by the ringing of a bell.

None respond, and the silence remains unbroken; yet the bell still rings, and colours the dawn in hues of dread.

* * *

Marianne alternates between cursing her blood and pleading to the Goddess for mercy with every thought that crosses her mind.

 _I did this to her,_ she thinks. _Please, Goddess, please, take me for her instead, please._

“Hey, Marianne,” says Raphael in a gentler tone than she has ever heard him use. “I, uh — I don’t think you should blame yours—”

The lone bell rings softly.

“Please stop,” begs Marianne, once its echo has stopped making her seize up in dismay. “You said she was looking for _me_ in there, Raphael. I… please.”

Raphael swallows nervously and shoots an imploring look at Lysithea, who stands next to him; at about half his height, she forms a contrast that would be comical in any situation other than this. Lysithea looks back at him, and then at Marianne grimly; although thankfully not with the same piteous look everyone else is hitting her with.

Marianne locks eyes with the younger girl, and gets a sympathetic grimace in response that makes her break off her stare and focus squarely ahead of her instead.

A large amount of the magically inclined staff and students of Garreg Mach are gathered on the bridge that leads to the Cathedral, where she stands among them doing her best to diminish herself. (Raphael is an outlier in this crowd, but he tagged along because he persuaded Professor Hanneman that he could easily shatter _some puny barrier_ with his bare fists.) But they do not seem inclined to notice her regardless, and instead stare and poke and prod at the purple-green sphere that comes up halfway across the bridge and surrounds the Cathedral so utterly that nothing can be seen from outside it.

Marianne wishes she had paid more attention to Professor Hanneman’s lectures on _Reasonable Magical Structures_ , but the topic has always been difficult for her and she hadn’t wanted to make the Professor’s life any harder by associating with him any more than necessary. Although it seems like it might not have mattered anyway, given that he, too, is currently prodding at the barrier and muttering in ineffectual frustration.

“No luck, old man?” asks Professor Manuela, pausing in her own study of it.

He sniffs in disdain, but replies, “Not quite… I simply cannot seem to determine what manner of structure the spell houses, and that is most extraordinary indeed!”

“It’s a five-point seal,” states Byleth flatly from where she stands next to them with a palm laid flat on the barrier’s surface.

The lone bell rings softly.

The two Professors turn to stare at her. “I… don’t believe I know what that is,” admits Professor Manuela, surprised.

“Neither do I,” agrees Professor Hanneman. “Could you elaborate?”

“Perhaps she is referring to a gated Fortification barrier that is locked by five separate keys?” suggests Lady Rhea before Byleth can reply. Byleth ponders for a moment, then nods. “I guess you could think of it like that,” she allows. Lady Rhea nods, satisfied, then sends a slight spark of green magic at the barrier without touching it. The point of impact brightens from its usual sickly purple-green and shimmers silver, revealing a circle of symbols unlike anything Marianne has ever seen before.

“How intriguing,” murmurs Professor Manuela. “I’ve studied a great many Wards and Barriers over the years — anything to keep the students out of my infirmary — but I don’t believe I’ve ever come across one using multiple keys before. However did you learn of it?”

Byleth shrugs. “Sothis kept stealing my sour candy and the single-point barriers wouldn’t keep her out, so I had to get creative,” she confesses, some colour returning to her tone.

The woman in question looks up from where she has been quietly inspecting the barrier. “But I managed to break that open with just physical force,” she says in a confused tone. Her face turns ponderous when Byleth shrugs, and she turns to inspect the barrier again more shrewdly.

Marianne swallows nervously when Sothis’ stance suddenly firms.

“Nothing for it, I suppose,” says Sothis grimly, and steps back. Lady Rhea turns to her with an expression of deep worry, and balks when Sothis jumps up a foot in the air and slams her first with a reverberating _boom_ into the barrier.

The bridge beneath Marianne’s feet shudders and groans, and everyone on it shuffles in alarm. But despite the explosive impact of Sothis’ now bloodied fist on the smooth surface of the barrier, it does not appear to even strain at the pressure.

She gapes in astonishment at Sothis as soon as she has regained her balance, and dimly registers everyone else around her doing the same.

The lone bell rings softly.

“By the Goddess — what astonishing strength!” exclaims Professor Hanneman, recovering first. Raphael booms out a vociferous agreement and enviously asks after her meal plan, at which she only shrugs sheepishly.

“Still, I fear the structural integrity of this bridge will fail before the barrier does, so it would likely not be wise to try that again,” cautions the Professor as Sothis scratches at her head at the admiring looks everyone is gracing her with.

“No,” agrees Sothis, and a look of dejection steals over her features. “There ends my usefulness, I suppose.”

“Not quite,” disputes Lady Rhea with a frown. Sothis blinks at her in surprise. “These keys… I believe I know what that disgusting creature used to lock this barrier. They seem to be tied to natural markers, after a fashion. But only a half-sum of — ah,” she trails off when everyone looks at her blankly. “Perhaps that is too complicated an explanation. But it will suffice to say that our keys in this case are very likely to be in the form of five different kinds of blood…”

“…bearing five different kinds of Crests,” finishes Professor Hanneman in astonishment.

“But which ones?” asks Lysithea, seeming slightly nervous.

“My own, for one,” replies Lady Rhea grimly. Marianne watches in fascination as she presses her hand into one of the sigils on the barrier’s surface, making it shimmer a pale blue. “But the effect of unlocking the barrier does not seem to be distributed amongst the keys, so all the Crest-bearers must channel theirs through a singular source.”

“Then we must simply gather everyone with a Crest, find someone willing to channel the energy, break the barrier, and rescue Seteth and Hilda,” says Sothis.

“No elaborate tactics this time?” wryly questions Dorothea, who has been so uncharacteristically quiet the entire time that Marianne hadn’t even noticed her present.

“None whatsoever,” replies Sothis grimly. “We don’t have the time, and I don’t have the inclination.”

The lone bell rings softly.

“Then I must entreat everyone gathered here to call all Crest-bearers in the Monastery to this bridge,” calls Lady Rhea. “And I must ask for someone to volunteer to be the focus for the unlocking spell. I will not lie — it will likely be painful, if not life-threatening, since we will need to try many times before we succeed. I would happily do it myself to spare anyone else the pain, but I cannot do so and unlock the barrier at the same time, and Byleth’s skills will be needed to correctly combine the energies of the various Crests in the first place, since she seems to be the only one familiar with the barrier’s construction. The Monastery was once in possession of an artifact that could have taken care of that, but…” she grimaces, “it was destroyed in an altercation a few years ago.”

“I’ll do it,” says Marianne in the most resolute tone she can muster, before anyone else has even fully processed the Archbishop’s words.

“If you are sure, dear child,” says Lady Rhea, looking at her gently. Marianne stands taller than she ever has in her life before. _You look a lot cuter when you don’t slouch like you usually do, Marianne! I love it,_ she remembers a bright voice saying to her once.

“I am,” she confirms even as the lone bell rings softly, swallowing tightly past the bile in her throat. _For you, Hilda._

“Very well,” sighs Lady Rhea. “I only wish it was not necessary. But I shall go to the library, and ask—”

“No need,” interjects Linhardt’s voice, which sounds sharper than Marianne has ever heard before. She turns to look at him strolling onto the bridge, and sees Hubert trailing beside him with a thunderous expression on his face. “Tomas isn’t there, and by the alarming amount of blood left near one of the now-scorched bookshelves on Barrier spell tomes, I suspect he might be involved in this entire mess. But we figured out how to break the enchantment he cast on the bells, at least. It might keep ringing for a bit longer, but it should eventually stop.”

“Tomas?” murmurs Lady Rhea, sounding truly shocked. Marianne empathises with her; the old man has such a kindly demeanour, so to think he would be capable of something like this…

“It’s irrelevant now,” interjects Sothis. “I suggest we all search and bring along everyone within the hour that we can think of. It’s already midday, and I would rather not trust the word of someone cunning enough to pull off something like this with such flawless timing. I’ll search along with you, Marianne.”

“R-right!” exclaims Marianne, swallowing past the terror uncoiling in her gut and trying to sound as willing as she can manage.

The lone bell rings softly once more, then does not ring again.

* * *

“You’re sick,” spits Hilda in disgust.

The monstrosity in front of her rasps out a chuckle. “It is too much to expect a beast such as you to understand,” he grins. “Perhaps the accursed being whose shield you hide behind can explain.”

“If I had none but myself to worry about, I would have long ensured your death,” grits out Seteth.

“Perhaps not, then,” laughs the monstrosity again. “But for one who failed to see through my disguise, I should not have hoped for much. You beastly humans pay far too much respect to the foibles of your elderly… never questioning, never wondering. It was quite amusing how all fell at my feet in service when I was Tomas, all because he was a decrepit old man.”

“Because they _knew_ him, and _respected_ him,” refutes Hilda angrily. “But I wouldn’t expect a monster to understand that.”

“Indeed not,” says the monster, smiling in agreement. “Why, I believe this monk that has so unfortunately been trapped outside of your shield will agree,” he continues, and rotates his hand in a sharp twist.

The unfortunate monk’s arm wrenches out of its socket with a sickening tear and falls to the ground in a bloody heap, and Hilda feels caught between the urge to snap this abomination’s neck and to hurl.

“Stop that this instant,” growls Seteth angrily.

“Oh? What will you do if I do not? Perhaps you will lower your shield to attack, and doom the rest of these feeble creatures to my tender mercies?” he says, pointing at Hilda and the other three monks situated inside Seteth’s bluish-gold, dome-shaped shield in the centre of the cathedral.

“L-lady Rhea will save us!” declares one of the monks from inside the barrier.

“I am certain she will try,” smiles the monster. “But none save better than Solon — yes, I, the saviour of all!”

“You gave them a whole _day_ to figure out how to break your barrier, you woolbrained abomination,” hisses Hilda. “They won’t take half that before they storm in here and burn you to a crisp.”

“The day’s delay is an unfortunate necessity,” admits Solon with a frown. “I must prepare for the next stage of our plan, after all. But they cannot open the barrier, even if they know how — they simply do not have the needed _ingredient_ , if you will.”

“Explain,” orders Seteth.

“Oh- _ho_ , I do not think I must,” gloats the abomination. “But it will be soothing to watch you drown in your own hubris, child of Fell Star, so I shall. Once there were eleven little beasts who took the blood of Fell Star’s accursed children. But one of them drank too much, and became less than even a beast in form. _His_ blood is one of the ingredients… but even the witch who calls herself Archbishop will not be able to find it in time.”

Seteth stares at him with a look of mute horror. “Maurice,” he breathes.

“That may have been — oh?” Solon breaks off, staring at the roof of the cathedral. “Why, it seems this armless little monk may have managed to live longer! I will take my leave now, for a while, and you will bring him into your shield and save him — or, perhaps, I will not truly leave and wait until you let your guard down, and wrap you all in my gentle embrace… hmmm. The beast bleeds, and the clock ticks. Hurry, now, accursed child!” he exclaims, and vanishes into a blob of purple flame.

Hilda stares at the spot where he vanished, and turns to Seteth in outrage. “Why can’t _we_ do that?” she demands.

“I have been trying ever since the nature of our position dawned on me,” sighs Seteth. “But that… thing has somehow managed to block all Warp magic except its own. I never was the most skilled at the art of Reason,” he admits at Hilda’s incredulous look.

She scoffs. “Well, how quickly can you lower and raise this shield again? We can’t just leave the poor guy like that, he’s going to bleed out,” she worries.

“Do not — do not risk it, Seteth,” the monk in question gasps from where he lies before Seteth can answer. “If I die so that I may save another, I die gladly.”

“Wow, way to make me feel guilty about trying to save your life,” mutters Hilda waspishly. “Don’t any of you know a healing spell?” she demands of the three monks inside the barrier.

“We — I do,” one of them stutters, “but Seteth will have to modify his shield to let it pass through.”

“I can do it fairly quickly,” grimaces Seteth at Hilda’s inquiring gaze. “It will be slightly more vulnerable for a second or two, perhaps. But the risk that Solon is not gone, merely hidden…”

“Screw it,” says Hilda, standing and reaching for the knife she always keeps in her boot. “I’m ready to throw down with him if he’s here. You hear that, ugly?” she shouts loudly into the cavernous room.

Her own voice echoes back at her. “Wow, it feels kinda weird to hear that now that they finally managed to shut that infernal bell up,” she muses.

“Very well,” says Seteth, ignoring her comment. “I will count to three. One.”

Hilda nods, and grips her knife tighter.

“Two.”

Hilda raises her knife in the stance Holst taught her, poised to be thrown perfectly at an assailant’s heart.

“Three. Done.”

Hilda blinks in surprise. “There’s no way that was two seconds just now,” she accuses, as one of the monks scrambles forward to Heal her injured compatriot.

Seteth raises an elegant brow at her. “I was merely being cautious,” he says, deadpan.

“Riiiiight,” she drawls, relaxing and replacing her knife. “Whatever you say.” Seteth does not seem keen to elaborate, so she huffs and starts to stride around the admittedly small space covered by the barrier.

“What are you doing?” sighs Seteth, staring at her.

“Pacing,” replies Hilda, pacing.

“Flayn has long since inured me to frustration at that particular kind of quip, I assure you,” frowns Seteth. “If that is your aim, you may cease trying.”

“You know what, you’re right,” admits Hilda, and sits back down next to him. “This place is kinda small for that.” Seteth nods, half in bewilderment and half in satisfaction, even as Hilda stares at him.

Then she sighs, suddenly.

“You’re not going to break, huh?” she considers.

“I have no idea what you refer to, but the answer is likely no,” replies Seteth.

“No idea?!” she exclaims indignantly. She scoots closer to Seteth and continues in a much lower voice, “You mean you have no idea what I might want to ask after that thing talked about accursed children of a _Fell Star_ , whatever that is, and how he seems to think you’re one of them?”

“None whatsoever,” insists Seteth. “If there are answers you seek, you will not get them from me. There is simply too much at stake to simply… hand them over to such a lazy, uncaring person!”

“Hey, take that back,” frowns Hilda. “I may be lazy, but there’s no way you can accuse me of being uncaring. I care _very much_ , thank you.”

Seteth’s lips thin, but he concedes with a nod. “I apologise,” he says tritely. “But you will still not get any answers from me. When we are freed of this… situation, you may ask Lady Rhea. She may or may not deem fit to give you the information you seek, but the matter is out of my hands.”

“When, huh…” contemplates Hilda quietly. “You sound awfully confident.”

“I have faith in the Goddess,” he says with a smile. “You should try it, sometime. It is quite refreshing.”

Hilda wrinkles her nose at him.

* * *

Marianne wipes gracelessly at the sweat on her brow with a handkerchief, and nods at Lady Rhea.

Byleth raises her glowing orange hands and touches Marianne’s spine again. She spasms involuntarily as the shock of so much magic flows through her for the one hundred and twentieth time that day. Lady Rhea grits her teeth and slams her hand onto the barrier again, which glows a blinding gold—

—then returns to its usual sickly hue.

“That’s all of them,” pants Byleth from behind Marianne. “All one hundred and twenty combinations of these five crests.”

“I don’t understand,” mutters Lady Rhea, sounding frustrated. “It… it clearly wishes to break open, and we are clearly giving it the right combination of Crest-enhanced magic, but it is as if… as if one of them is simply not striking it in the correct amount relative to the others.”

Nobody can quite muster up a reply, as they all stare in consternation at each other.

Marianne only prays fervently that the cause for their failure isn’t her curse.

Professor Jeralt strikes up a low conversation with Professor Hanneman, both still standing in their allocated positions in the intricately carved mass of symbols on the ground, but Catherine steps out of hers to quietly chat with Sothis about their plan to retake the cathedral. Sylvain sighs loudly at this, and asks Dimitri if he can _please_ step out now.

“Seiros, Indech, Gautier, Charon, Cethleann,” says Linhardt suddenly from where he stands, in the last position. “Oh, my apologies,” he adds when everyone turns to stare at him. “I am left to wonder… we don’t think we’re getting a crest _entirely_ wrong, but what if we’re getting it… partially wrong?”

Marianne blinks, and begins to feel something sinking in her gut.

“Explain,” frowns Lady Rhea.

“Well, suppose one of us swapped places to combine the Crest energies instead of Byleth here, or to focus the magic in Marianne’s stead. Or even to wield the magic into a spell to take down the barrier in your stead, Lady Rhea. Wouldn’t you suppose, if any one of those links in the chain had a Crest of their own, they would bleed through into the final spell?” he wonders.

“Perhaps,” allows Lady Rhea, her frown deepening, “but I bear a Crest of Seiros myself, so nothing would change if Jeralt were to take my place. And I am not aware of Byleth and Marianne bearing any Crests, Major or Minor...” she trails off, contemplative. “Still, the idea has merit.”

“Actually,” whispers Marianne. Linhardt smiles at her slightly, and she tries to feel a stab of anger at him for making her expose her secret but all she can muster is a deep, overwhelming sense of shame. “Actually, I — I do have a crest,” she manages to admit.

“You do?” queries Professor Hanneman incredulously. “Why, but I thought… ah. It seems my hubris has bested me.”

“Quite,” agrees Lady Rhea softly, staring at Marianne. “The Crest you bear is not very widely known, is it?”

“N-no,” admits Marianne. “It — the Crest. Of the,” her voice drops to a bare breath, “the Beast.”

“The Beast?” wonders Lady Rhea in surprise. “…Maurice. I see. I am not certain why you seem ashamed of it so, child, but all Crests are a gift from the Goddess herself. She would want you to bear her gift happily.”

Marianne nods, and speaks up in a tone so utterly unlike herself that she hardly realises when she says, “I respectfully disagree, Lady Rhea. That may be true for others, but my Crest is a curse, and it always has been.”

“But,” she continues, and turns to Linhardt with a tight smile of her own. “We should swap places, regardless. If I can use this curse for good, even once… I think that will be enough, for me.”

“No,” disagrees a voice. Marianne blinks at the intrusion and turns to see Flayn, who strides up to them angrily and says, “I will be the focus for the magic, since I bear a Crest of Cethleann, myself. Linhardt can rest.”

Linhardt shrugs in reply, but Lady Rhea looks ready to mutiny, if the tightness of her jaw is any indication. Flayn snaps at her before she can say anything, “If you will not let me near the fight, you _must_ let me do at least this. My _brother_ is in there, if you’ve forgotten.”

Lady Rhea only looks at her for a moment longer before acquiescing with a sigh. “Seteth will have my head if he finds out,” she mumbles. Flayn smiles earnestly at her, and promises, “He shall not know from me.”

Marianne steps into the space in the circle Linhardt vacates, as Flayn steps in front of Byleth. “I’ll try to be gentle,” murmurs Byleth. Flayn rolls her shoulders in preparation and assures her calmly, “Do not worry. I am hardly as fragile as I may seem.”

The green-orange magic of the circle powers up again, and Byleth touches Flayn’s spine. The character of the magic that flows into Lady Rhea’s awaiting palm looks starkly different, now — instead of a cool blue, it is now an angry red that she slams into the barrier with a _thunk_.

For a moment, Marianne fears the worst. Her Crest must have doomed them all, and the spell will now turn on them and destroy them utterly. Or perhaps the barrier will be the cause of their downfall instead, since it now glows a bright silver instead of the previous gold—

—and vanishes into nonexistence with a quiet _tinkle_.

Marianne stares at the rest of the bridge, which is now visible as if no barrier had ever existed.

“Time to begin,” murmurs Sothis, as they all charge forward in a hush.

The light has not quite faded from the sky yet, but it has dimmed enough to cast deep, long shadows over the bridge as the party slowly advances towards the cathedral. Marianne barely registers it as she moves thoughtlessly to the position she is meant to take, her mind stuck replaying the way she had _felt_ the energy from her Crest unmake Hilda’s prison.

 _I did that,_ she thinks numbly. _Goddess, what._

* * *

Hilda grins at their captor triumphantly.

“They’re — coming — for — you!” she sings.

It hisses in fury and picks up the battered body of the monk on the ground by the scruff of his neck. The monk attempts to struggle weakly, but by now even the energy of his faith has dwindled and he can only muster a low groan.

The door to the cathedral slams open to reveal the silhouette of Sothis, framed in the furious gold of the dying sun.

“Fell Star,” hisses Solon, sounding pleased as he turns to face her, even as the long shadow of Sothis casts him into darkness. “You have not shied away from your calling.”

“No,” she replies in a ringing voice that makes the hair on the back of Hilda’s neck stand on end. “I have not.”

“Then it is time,” booms the abomination, and gathers an abyssal orb of eldritch power in its hand. “To unleash—”

The door to the cathedral slams shut behind Sothis, and ten arrows from ten directions sink into the librarian-turned-monster.

But it only laughs, even as it staggers from the impact and drops the monk in its hand with a dull _thud_. “How can vermin possibly unmake me?” it rasps out with a chilling laugh, as the orb in its hand grows larger. “Your time—”

A shadow descends from the roof into the darkening hall, lands behind the monster, and cleaves it in twain with a single stroke of a gleaming silvery blade.

“Allow me to demonstrate,” hisses Byleth stormily, flicking her blade clean of blood as the vivisected halves of Solon collapse in a gory heap onto the ground, and the orb of darkness vanishes into unbeing.

Hilda feels oddly empty as Seteth releases the golden shield he has somehow held for however long they have been trapped here. She hardly registers when the door to the cathedral opens again and everyone floods in past Sothis, and Byleth steps over the messy remains of her imprisoner to hand her sword back to Lady Rhea with a flourish. She barely even notices Flayn shriek _Brother!_ in excited relief, and doesn’t even blink when Professor Manuela skirts past the hyper eager girl to attend to the injured monk on the ground. All she truly has eyes for is Marianne, who has so many unreadable emotions on her face that Hilda almost feels that she could spend a lifetime cataloguing them all.

Marianne, who stands taller than Hilda has ever seen her, and makes Hilda _want_ to spend that lifetime picking apart the look on her face, inch by adorable inch.

(Hilda has it _bad_.)

Marianne, who runs towards Hilda with wide eyes and makes Hilda come to the slow realisation that she probably ought to brace for impact. _Bless her soul_ , thinks Hilda as she catches Marianne around the waist with a muffled grunt, and transfers their momentum into a spin. _She’s so worried she probably didn’t even plan for how she was going to break her run._

“Hilda,” sobs Marianne into her hair. “I’m — I’m, please, Hilda, I’m so sorry, I promise, I’ll—”

“There, there,” murmurs Hilda into Marianne’s shoulder when they have come to a stop. She draws back slightly, and gently cups Marianne’s face in her hands. “I was only in here looking for you because I was worried what you’d gotten up to, you know? And I definitely didn’t worry less when I realised you’d have to make do without me for that long… what am I going to do with you, Marianne?”

“I’m sorry,” chokes out Marianne again. “I’ll — I was wrong, and you—”

“Hush,” whispers Hilda, and leans up to kiss her soundly.

The slightest whimper escapes Marianne’s throat when Hilda breaks off.

“What?” squeaks Marianne, tears forgotten and flushing furiously. But she makes no move to pull back, so Hilda giddily chalks the whole thing up as a resounding success.

“Cute,” she muses with a soft grin, brushing a teardrop off Marianne’s cheek with the pad of her thumb and staring adoringly at her wide, warm brown eyes. “But we can talk about it when there’s less people staring. Speaking of,” she adds with a raised voice, as she turns to look at the gathering crowd and releases her grip on Marianne’s waist to lace their fingers together, “what did I miss?”

“A lot,” replies Claude, who is watching her with a cheeky smile she is entirely sure she hates the look of. “But how do you feel about participating in another rescue operation?”

“Sign me up to repay the favour,” she drawls in affirmation, snapping a lazy salute at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kiss kiss fall in love
> 
> “the plunging attack is the most reliable move in the game” – videogamedunkey, so Solon died in one hit... but his machinations lay undetected for years, for he was a master of deception! could this truly be the end of his plots?
> 
> next episode, we finally find out what our favourite princess has been up to in captivity!


	14. Lady of Hresvelg

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edelgard awakens, and remembers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [mercy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Kk-FJe43Aw).
> 
> cw: depictions of (past) torture, graphic violence

Cold.

Dark.

Damp.

Drip-drip.

Clank.

Skitter-scatter.

Edelgard cannot breathe.

She is twelve again, small and afraid and watching her youngest brother bleed to death and the rats gnaw on the whites of his eyes until there is nothing remaining but bleached and hollowed skull and her oldest sister is watching mutely and not screaming because her throat has been singed and tongue cut open and she has not the energy to protest as the white masks and black robes surgically erase her bloodline all while they smile at El and promise her that she will not have to suffer if she obeys so that she has no choice but to shudder against her chains and accept their words and when they start cutting into _her_ skin she does not scream either and swears she will hate the Goddess who forsook her forever—

—and when El is dead and the last lady of Hresvelg leaves that shadowed place beneath her palace, warm earthen hair bleached by death and lively florid eyes shadowed by suffering, she swears she will eliminate those who did this to her and to her brothers and sisters but _how can the last lady of Hresvelg exist when El is still alive and still chained to the walls of the palace dungeons?_

_Please help me, Goddess._

_please. i don’t want to die._

A long, drawn out scrape.

A sound that does not belong in the palace dungeons.

El dies again, and Edelgard opens her eyes, which focus slowly on a leaf that has gently floated in through the small window near the roof of her prison beneath Castle Gaspard.

A small leaf. Unassuming in its nature, with four veins and a deep colour; hardly done justice by the pitiful starlight that streams in from the thin high window that allowed it entry.

But the leaf is green, and Edelgard remembers that shade. Edelgard remembers the swipe of an axe that never came and a rock falling from above, Edelgard remembers the feeling of a hand squeezing hers and saving her from certain oblivion, Edelgard remembers the concerned crinkle of bright green eyes and a warm embrace that shelters her against the cold dark abyss.

Edelgard remembers the light in the world, and it ignites something in her that she had long thought dead and buried — the steady, ever-present beat of a heart that spells out hope.

Hope kindles the Crest of Flames that the white masks and black robes have singed into her blood. The inferno burns through the cobwebs in her mind and painstaking years of conditioning, and, for the first time in what feels like years, Edelgard recalls the voices of her siblings.

_Be strong, El. But be kind._

_You’re fast, El! But are you fast enough to catch all of us?_

_I-it doesn’t work like that, I can’t just tell him something so embarrassing!_

_Ha! You’ll be a force to be reckoned with once you’re a bit taller, you know._

_Shhh. You can’t say things like that round here._

_The food lady said we could have extra dessert today._

_Wanna do my hair next?_

_Cookie?_

_You’re it!_

_Hug, El!_

Tears stream down her cheeks, but she is smiling because she realises that _she still remembers_ ; she still remembers the ten who she loved and who loved her before all else, the ten who she watched live and who she watched die, the ten who were _hers_ and who were taken from her before she could say thank you, or goodbye.

“Goodbye, and thank you,” she says, and tears herself free of the chains that bind her.

The wall behind her collapses under the sudden strain; it was meant to restrain a human, but Edelgard carries with her the wrath of a Goddess and the blood of a Goddess’ daughter, and the constructs of humans can never withstand the anger of star-born beings.

There is an unmasked woman in black robes behind the wall she shattered. She looks back at the disruption, startled, but before she can even begin to express her surprise Edelgard has thrown a block of rubble at her with such force that her neck snaps from the impact.

She dies with the startled look still etched on her face.

“I love you, Agnes,” says Edelgard, thinking of bright red hair and a crinkle eyed smile.

She strips the woman of her robes and dons them. Her captors did not seem to like offering her the dignity of clothing in captivity, so she was bare when they chained her to the wall she shattered; meant to rot until her allies gave in to their demands. The new, jagged scar on her chest from a jet of Wind twinges uncomfortably as she tightens the robe around herself — she has been healed, it seems, but just badly enough to leave a scar.

More concealed now, Edelgard proceeds down the hallways of the dungeon that imprisons her, and turns a corner to find a masked, robed man rushing in her prison cell’s direction at the noise she’d made.

A thrust of her palm sends the bone of his nose straight through his brain.

“I love you, Frederic,” says Edelgard, thinking of rushing footfalls and laughter drifting away.

The man was carrying a small dagger, which Edelgard grabs hesitantly. It reminds her of her own dagger, obtained so long ago that she does not even remember who gave it to her — she remembers only that she would have cut her own path with it. This blade is a poor imitation at best; it does not fit her hand as nicely, the weight is balanced differently, and looking at it does not fill her with the same sense of half-remembered grief and longing. But it will be useful nonetheless, even if she does not need it to kill.

She validates her decision by jamming it into the lock of a door that blocks the way to ascend to the castle proper from the dungeon; the lock gives way to her insistent shaking and allows her entry into the floor above.

There are three people in the new hallway in front of her. Two, with their backs to the doorway she stands in, are black-robed and white-masked; they converse in hushed, angry tones with a third who is clad in the raiment of a protector of this castle’s House.

She switches the grip of the dagger in her palm, and throws it with mechanical precision at the back of one of the black-robed figures, where it shears soundlessly through their spine. Before the Knight of the castle can register much more than her presence, she has taken five lightning-quick strides and wrapped her hands around the head of the other masked figure, whose back is still to her.

 _Snap_ , _crackle_ , _pop_.

She retrieves her now bloodied dagger, and politely tells the knight that she has no quarrel with him, but that she would rather he left. He does so, with a horrified look at her face and the dripping dagger in her hands, and turns with a brisk stride that turns into a panicked sprint once he is far enough. She watches him go, then turns to survey the dead and broken bodies on the floor.

“I love you, Gabrielle,” says Edelgard, thinking of nervously wringing hands and a shifty gaze.

The hallway leads to the reception hall of the castle; it is a sparsely decorated affair, but appears well-loved and well-lived-in, though abandoned at present. There is not a trace of a person here, but towards the far end of the hall Edelgard can hear faint voices and an unnatural light from a mostly-hidden alcove, and she heads in that direction.

Two unmasked faces snap towards her as soon as she steps around the wall. From the distance she stands at, she can even make out the whites of their eyes as they blink in surprise at having their conversation interrupted. “How—” is as much as one of them gets out before Edelgard has reached out and smashed their heads together hard enough to cave in their skulls, and they collapse instantly in a flurry of black robes.

“I love you, Janine,” says Edelgard, thinking of wooden swords and the thrill of combat.

She frowns as she considers their peculiar choice of location to chat, but upon a careful inspection of the rest of the hall she was previously in, realises that the alcove is home to a very peculiar brazier. Fiddling with it yields that it conceals a mechanism that reveals the hidden stairway to the floors above. Satisfied with her finding, she activates the mechanism and steps through the newly-revealed doorway in time with the _clang-clang-clang_ of the locking mechanisms.

Instantly, she can hear many more voices and sounds indicating activity; it seems that most of her enemy has congregated on this floor, away from the prying eyes and ears of those below. Strange, since they prefer to exist underground from what Hubert has been able to glean of them, but she supposes they must be relishing the opportunity to enjoy life from a different perspective.

 _It is a shame for them,_ she thinks, _that I plan to rob them of it._

The second floor of the castle that is meant to serve as her prison is almost labyrinthine in nature, but the thin winding hallways and isolated rooms make it trivial for her to isolate groups of the black-robed and white-masked thieves of her family’s lives:

In one room, here, she steps in and makes quick work of one masked-and-robed woman hunched over some papers; a passing glance reveals that the papers map the interior of the castle, and hold clues to the current whereabouts of the people who ordinarily reside in this place. She studies them much more carefully when she realises this, and when she is done, turns her head briefly to look at the crumpled form on the floor.

“I love you, Jonan,” says Edelgard, thinking of dusty parchment and a thousand-yard stare.

In another room, there, she creeps up behind two figures eying a suit of armour and seeming to have a discussion on the merits of wearing it to blend in, and ends their debate with two well-aimed slashes of her increasingly blood-soaked dagger. They, like many before them, fall without much in the way of noise.

“I love you, Maxim,” says Edelgard, thinking of hearty soup and soul-soothing music.

Despite her caution, her captors must still eventually realise something is afoot, because she soon begins encountering them in the hallways; one of them almost lets out a shout to give away her position before she can rush over to jab him in the throat and crush his windpipe.

“I love you, Aurelia,” says Edelgard, thinking of shiny chestnut curls and a freckled nose.

Another two rush towards her from a hidden corner at the false end of one particular hallway; a ball of fire passes close enough to her head to singe some of her brow. She dodges the worst of it in time, even as her nostrils twinge with the offensive scent of burnt hair, and slams her dagger into the chest of one of her attackers — and her other hand, curled into a fist, straight _through_ the chest of another.

“I love you, Lillen,” says Edelgard, thinking of bright blue eyes and tiny, fierce hands.

Thanks to the maps she has studied, Edelgard is aware there is a third and final floor to the sprawling castle. The entrance to the stairway, she finds, is guarded by another knight of this castle, flanked by two of her robed enemies. She has no wish to involve the knight in her bloody quest, but the helmeted figure seems determined to aid her enemies, so she rushes into them, dodges past the wild swing of the knight’s claymore and two balls of flame, and slams the armoured figure into the door behind them. The impact jostles the blade from the knight’s hand; in a single motion, she throws her dagger at the mask of the man to her left and grabs the falling claymore. Reversing her momentum with draconian swiftness, she twists the blade in her grip and jams it to the hilt in the face of the one behind her, all while her back is towards where she blindly thrust her sword.

A sickening _crunch_ indicates that she has found her mark.

The knight beside her has managed to recover their wits in the meantime, and attempts to take a wild swing at her. She releases the claymore and catches the fist hurtling towards her with her freed hand, and uses her other to knock the helmet off the knight. This reveals the frightened yet determined face of a young woman; she looks angry enough at her helmet being punched off that she attempts to take another swing at Edelgard with her remaining free arm. Edelgard ducks beneath it and hits the knight again with an uppercut strong enough to lift her momentarily upward, before she comes crashing down to the ground with a clamour. She checks the downed woman for a pulse, and breathes a quiet sigh of relief upon finding one.

“I love you, Samara,” says Edelgard, thinking of precocious giggles and a dizzying blur of honeygold locks.

The last floor, unlike its siblings below, seems to consist entirely of a single grand hall; carved stone pillars and patterned arches frame its edges, and the stars shine through simple but large glass windows situated at regular intervals at each edge. Beneath one of the windows, Edelgard can see two small figures lying hogtied and gagged; one of them seems to be still, but one is awake and actively struggling against their binds. Their struggles seem to be ignored and in vain, and she regrets only for an instant that she cannot come to their aid sooner before the entirety of her attention is occupied by the shape standing in the centre of the room.

It is the shape of a tall, gaunt man; in his right hand he holds a gnarled ebony staff, and in his left a short steel sword. His face is the stuff of her nightmares, with pale, leathery skin and bone-white hair; hair not dissimilar to her own in colour, but unlike hers, his is thin, short, and wispy. His eyes are white orbs devoid of much in the way of irises, and they are framed by thin brows and a short, pointed beard, both of which are the same colour as his hair.

Edelgard watches in morbid fascination as the edges of his face suddenly warp and begin to bubble over. The feather-white skin ripples and sputters like boiling gruel and assumes a deeper, richer colour typical of Enbarr aristocracy. The blank white orbs shimmer and twist like water into a sinkhole, and gain purple irises that mirror her own. The white hair falls in thin sprinkles that remind her of the snows of Fhirdiad, and from underneath the falling hair emerge perfectly glossy, long black locks… thin, dark brows… and a slim, well-groomed beard that is the height of fashion in Adrestia.

“Have you changed your mind, dear niece?” mocks Volkhard von Arundel.

“I loved my uncle, too, but he died long ago,” replies Edelgard.

He chuckles at this — the sound grates on Edelgard’s ears like a wire scraping along a metal bowl, and she distantly recalls that she has heard it before, in the dungeons that trapped her many years ago, and then again many hours ago. The grip of her past is no match for the strength of the blood it gave her, however, and she does not even flinch at the memory. Instead, she steps towards him, and informs him that she is going to end his life.

This causes him to laugh harder, and he cajoles her for her hubris. “Dear Edelgard, have you forgotten your goal so easily? You are nothing without me. I made you, after all,” he leers, even as he drops his crooked staff to hold his blade aloft with both hands. “But if you insist on continuing this foolishness, I will be happy to remind you of your place once again,” he finishes, and steps towards her in a battle stance she does not recognise.

Edelgard steps forward in retort, and readies her dagger. It is a poor match for the sword her opponent bears, but the flames inside her have only burned hotter since she broke free of her chains — and they have long prepared for this confrontation. That fire coats the edge of her blade, now; the dagger sings through the air and chases away the darkness of the night as it slams in a shower of sparks against the cold steel her enemy attempts to strike her with.

He grins at her as he perfectly neutralises all of her attacks, and retaliates with a dizzyingly fast counterslash that nearly tears into her throat.

“Look what I have made you,” says Lord Arundel, almost as if in admiration as she barely ducks underneath and stumbles backward into a defensive stance. “The perfect weapon. Must you persist on your doomed path?”

“Doomed — or — otherwise,” she grits out as she slams a staccato pattern with her dagger into his guard and gets expertly parried at every turn, “at least I will have cut it myself.”

“Then your path is your grave,” says Lord Arundel, in a voice that resembles nameless creatures of the deep. She jumps out of the way of his riposte, and warily distances herself more when his skin begins to flake away. Bone-white features peek out again from underneath human skin, and Volkhard von Arundel falls gracelessly before the suffocating might of the one who slithers underneath; his temporary lease on the light snuffed out.

“A waste of life,” utters Thales, as he drops the blade and raises his hand.

The staff Arundel discarded flies smoothly into it, gleaming oddly. The black ebony it is made of is darker than any she has seen before; darker even than the faintly starlit night. Even the light of her glowing dagger is not reflected in the polished surface of the wood, absorbed as surely and utterly as the brightness of the stars outside.

Thales smiles, and from one, becomes many.

Edelgard’s seven opponents form a circle around her and stifle her senses so utterly that the only thing that remains in her vision is the glowing crimson edge of her dagger and the only sound in her ears is the harsh rasp of her own breath. She shifts her stance — her dagger drops low, now, rather than being held aloft, and her feet inch closer together to allow for quicker movement instead of greater stability.

A gavotte, instead of a chaconne.

The first strike _whooshes_ sharply past her eardrums as she barely avoids being struck on the shoulder. Her crimson instrument of war chases endlessly after a connection, but finds nothing but inky smoke where her attacker had been.

The second, third, and fourth shadows strike simultaneously. She sees them coming as more of an absence of light than anything else, and lets her instinct guide her to duck beneath the second strike, then tries quickly to deflect the fourth. But it reveals itself to be a phantom, and the third shadow slides easily between her defenses and slams its staff into her solar plexus — right atop the slumbering scar of Wind.

Sudden, painful tears blur her vision as she stumbles back through another inky shadow, wheezing in pain. The third shadow issues a fifth attack, and she barely has the presence of mind to slam her blade back in defiance against the assault. But her tears are born of rage, not sorrow, and it urges her forward to score her dagger along the staff she has hit towards the one holding it and carves a deep, burning gash into the darkness.

Thales issues an ear-piercing scream, and the darkness retreats into his singular form. She admires her handiwork briefly in the starlight renewed; Thales’ dark robes are stained with dark liquid, and the sickly-sweet smell of singed sinew slips into her nostrils. But he does not seem to want to continue their blood-rending dance any longer, and the shadow of his staff shifts into sharp, hardened edges that surely spell a swift end to her chances of winning this bout with her pitiful weapon.

It does not matter. The flames inside her that she has been stoking ever since she remembered herself are at their zenith; the blazing fury of a fallen star mingles in her blood with the rumbling anger of a volcano. All this time, the flames have been begging for release; she has held them back with her declarations of love for her dead brothers and dead sisters, but they are content to stay within her no longer.

The flames now no longer beg. They pound insistently against her arteries, they sing in her blood, they slam her heart against her ribs. They _demand_. Edelgard holds for a few moments longer; she steps towards Thales in rejoinder, and pretends she is going to meet him in futile combat with her bloodied dagger. His teeth are bared in fury, but a sick satisfaction lurks behind his vacuous gaze.

He must think she has given up.

“I love you, Theodore,” says Edelgard, thinking of sandy blond hair and a toothy grin — then gives in.

She has the cathartic experience of her soul sighing in relief as its burdens are released; the fires of her crests swarm in a veritable _inferno_ at her unprepared enemy. A feeble purple barrier springs up around him to sputter ineffectively against them; it holds for a bare instant before it winks out and the conflagration slams into the gap it left unprotected.

When she is done, only the charred scraps of Thales’ bones remain on the molten stone floor of Castle Gaspard.


	15. Chasing Daybreak

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A woman discovers her strength, and is betrayed by time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i lost control of my schedule and my life for two entire weeks because i am an unrepentant serial procrastinator... but we are now back! hopefully with the previous somewhat consistent upload schedule, too!
> 
> on to our regularly scheduled cw: graphic violence

Arya wakes when the fiery white-haired woman frees them, and complains of the cold, yawning sleepily like she’d just taken the most relaxing nap ever.

Eren is sure it had taken _years_ off his life when his brat of a sister had refused to get up and say she was okay as they had been taken prisoner, and he almost bonelessly slumps to the ground in relief when she finally stirs now. His relief is tempered somewhat when remembers that they are still trapped in the castle — but not much, because someone rescued them from that monstrous person against all odds, even if it isn’t their big brother like he’d half-hoped and half-prayed for the entire time. But this woman seems nice enough, and while in the faint starlight her white hair looks almost like the shade of silver Ashe and Arya both have…

“Riding on my shoulders is dangerous,” the woman is explaining patiently. “You could be seriously hurt if you fell from such a height.”

“You’re not that tall,” mumbles Arya, crossing her arms and turning away moodily.

Eren hides a smile as the woman’s brow twitches at his sister’s cheekiness. She may be nice, and her hair may shine similarly in the starlight, but she isn’t Ashe, and dealing with Arya when she’s being a brat is an art only their brother has truly ever mastered. But to his surprise the woman only shakes her head and agrees with a muttered _fine_ , and grabs Arya to hoist her up — at which Arya squirms away and bursts into a giggle.

The woman frowns and tosses her silvery white hair over her shoulder, and lays her hands on her hips. “If you behave that way, I won’t lift you up,” she scolds gently.

“Nonono,” insists Arya, shaking her head with adorably widened eyes. “It’s just—” she lets out a short giggle again, before adopting a look that can only be termed _comically serious_ on her face, “—your hands are really ticklish!”

“My—” starts the woman in surprise, breaking off to stare at her hands. In the dim starlight that streams in through the large windows, Eren just barely catches a glimpse of numerous thin, geometrical white ridges on her hands before she tucks them quickly into the baggy sleeves of her robe. He frowns in confusion for a moment—

—before his eyes widen in horrified realisation.

“Callouses from training,” says the woman hastily when she catches his gaze.

Arya seems to accept this with only a thoughtful nod, and holds her hands out for the woman to pick her up again, promising to not be tickled this time. The woman stares at Eren for a moment longer — though he feels her gaze pass straight through him and end up far away — then shakes her head with a small, apologetic grimace and lifts Arya up effortlessly onto a slim, black-robed shoulder.

“Thank you!” chirps Arya. “Miss… um…”

“Edelgard,” says Edelgard.

Arya frowns down at her from her perch.

“E-del-gard,” repeats Edelgard slowly.

Arya mumbles the name so lowly that Eren doesn’t quite catch it — and butchers it horribly, if Edelgard’s wince is anything to go by. “But you can call me El,” she adds hastily.

“El!” exclaims Arya excitedly. “Is that your nickname? I always wanted a nickname, but Ashe says our names are all too short to have them. And Eren calls me chatty, but that isn’t a real nickname! I checked in the library for a whole day and all the books said so!”

“I can see why,” remarks Edelgard wryly. She turns to look at Eren appraisingly. “I don’t suppose you want to ride on my remaining shoulder?”

He makes a face at her. “I’m grown up, thanks,” he says, scrunching his nose.

“You’re only four years older than me!” protests Arya indignantly. “Pick him up too, Miss El!”

“If he doesn’t want to, I’m not going to force him,” replies Edelgard calmly. Eren’s estimate of her niceness inches up. “Now, before we proceed, we’re going to have to be extra quiet. Can you both do that for me?”

Arya nods obediently and mimes zipping her lips shut, and Eren replies with a more perfunctory solitary nod.

“Good,” says Edelgard, sounding pleased. “I don’t think there’s many people left in the castle, but it would be quite dangerous if we’re caught sneaking out. Speaking of, I don’t suppose either of you know a way to get us out of here that isn’t the front door?”

Eren trades a glance with Arya. “The pantry,” they say in unison.

“Lead the way,” instructs Edelgard. Eren nods and cautiously begins descending the stairs — then blanches when he gingerly opens the door to reveal the slumped form of a knight, surrounded by two of the black-robed mages that took them captive.

“She’s alive,” whispers Edelgard casually, as if discussing the weather. Eren meets her gaze, then swallows and looks away at the implication that Arya seems to miss.

_The mages aren’t._

Edelgard casually ducks and picks up the bloodstained sword on the ground that lies next to one of the mages and shines dimly in the starlight streaming in from a distant open window. The slight _whisper-crunch_ that it makes as she drags it up makes him revise his estimate of her abilities again. She’d thrown that giant storm of fire at that white-eyed man earlier, true, but this bloodshed in the dark that she doubtlessly carried out alone lends a silently horrific quality to her that a screaming halo of fire had not.

Eren leads them silently down the hallways after, being very careful to not step in the occasional suspiciously dark puddles of liquid. He is keenly aware of Arya shuffling and squirming around on Edelgard’s shoulder, and ends up taking many circuitous paths whenever he spots slumped over hooded forms in hallways.

“Miss El,” whispers Arya after Eren has managed to shield her innocent gaze from what feels like the fifth group of downed mages. He swallows in alarm and hopes she hasn’t caught on to what he’s doing, because she has the annoying habit of tattling on him whenever she thinks he’s being shifty — and everyone knows that unlike Ashe, he’s so much worse at hiding when he actually is being shifty, like right now—

“How’d you get your nickname?” wonders Arya.

Eren almost stumbles in relief.

Edelgard exhales softly, and Eren pauses to look back at her curiously. In the gloom, it is hard to tell exactly what she is thinking, but passing by evidence of the bloody path she has carved behind her to reach her confrontation with the white-eyed mage has long given him a healthy, fearful sort of respect for her. He hopes nervously that Arya’s innocuous question does not upset her.

“I don’t really remember,” whispers Edelgard thoughtfully after a while. “But it must have been one of my siblings — they were all in such a hurry all the time, and my name is a bit of a mouthful, after all.”

“Siblings!” squeaks Arya excitedly, and Edelgard hastily hushes her. “You mean you have brothers?” she continues, quieter but no less animated. “Or sisters? I always wanted a sister…”

“Had. I — I had siblings, but they’re all gone now,” breathes Edelgard. Eren swallows nervously as she slowly clutches her free hand to her chest and rubs at her heart stiffly.

“Oh,” mumbles Arya. “I’m sorry, Miss El. I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

“It’s okay,” murmurs Edelgard back, patting Arya’s knee gently. “I…” she trails off, but even in the bare starlight that shines through Castle Gaspard’s sparse windows, her small smile is visible.

“I don’t mind talking about them,” she whispers.

“Ohhh,” whispers Arya again, sounding much brighter, as Eren turns again to begin walking down the stairwell to the floor where the kitchen and the pantry are.

“Did they ever bully you?” wonders Arya. “I bully Eren all the time,” Eren flushes at this, and hears Edelgard breathe out a soft chuckle, “but Ashe always tells me I should be nicer to him. But he’s _mean_ and he doesn’t do — _mmmph._ ”

Eren feels his heart thud painfully against his ribs as the three of them duck quietly behind a pillar on the main floor of the castle, just in time for a trio of black-robed mages to rush past. The mages do not bother checking behind the pillars, and instead rush up the stairwell in terrifying synchronicity.

“No response from sectors A-3 through A-9,” he catches one of them say in tones of frustration.

“We cannot lose such valuable samples,” another replies, as they vanish from sight.

Eren does not dare to even breathe until Edelgard slowly removes her hand from Arya’s mouth, who looks so suddenly and uncharacteristically terrified that she doesn’t even twitch beyond bunching her hands tightly into the cloth at Edelgard’s shoulder.

She doesn’t speak for a long while after, even after they start to move again after listening with strained ears for even the slightest inkling of noise beyond the faded chatter of the night outside.

“My little sister used to bully me into playing tag with her,” muses Edelgard suddenly in a murmur, as they continue padding silently along the hallways. “And one of my brothers would refuse to go to bed unless all of us hugged him one by one. But hardly anyone begrudged him that, since he was _terrifyingly_ adorable.”

Eren glances back to see Arya listening with wide, intent eyes, but she still does not utter another word.

“My eldest sister, though,” smiles Edelgard, seeming wistful. “She was a… a strong personality, to say the least. Half the Im — our household would wait on her every whim. An outsider would likely suspect her of being the biggest bully of the lot, but the strangest thing is… she never _asked._ We all just did things for her because it felt right, and if I’m honest, I’m still jealous of her for inspiring that kind of feeling in everyone.”

Eren wonders what kind of tragedy befell this woman’s family for her to talk about them in such fond yet undeniably saddened tones. But he does not think it his place to inquire, and Arya — who usually does all the talking for both her brothers — still stays worryingly quiet. But he sees her perk up from the corner of his eye as they round the final turn to the hallway that houses the kitchen and the pantry.

“I’m hungry,” she whispers eventually, as they near the door that separates the kitchen from the pantry. Eren pauses and looks at her in concern.

“Miss El,” continues Arya quietly. “Can we eat something?”

“Of course, but we’ll have to hurry,” replies Edelgard, as Eren fiddles quietly with the lock on the door and swings it open cautiously. The kitchen inside is bare, but one of the stone ovens glows dimly in the tantalising promise of a meal within. Edelgard sets Arya down gently, and she silently pads over as Edelgard swings open the heavyset oven door to reveal a single, perfectly cooked loaf of bread inside.

Eren almost salivates at the wonderful aroma that instantly assaults his senses, and he dimly registers Arya’s gloom evaporate away in a flash as she stares with stars in her eyes at the loaf. Edelgard pulls it out, tears it into two chunks swiftly, and hands one to Arya, and one to Eren. He does not even wait to dig into it ravenously — but slows when he sees Arya staring contemplatively at hers.

Edelgard frowns at her, and crouches. “Is something the matter?” she asks gently.

“You didn’t get any,” frowns Arya. She bravely attempts to tear the loaf in two and manages, stumbling only slightly as she presents the larger of the misshapen pieces to Edelgard, who looks at Arya in surprise.

“You’re big, so you need to eat more,” continues Arya, her frown becoming deeper when Edelgard makes no move to take the bread from her hands. “That’s what everyone always tells me, _and_ that’s what all the books say, so I know it’s true.”

Eren feels a hot flash of guilt at having been so inconsiderate, but Edelgard only chuckles slightly at Arya, and pats the girl’s head. “I’m not hungry,” she says with a grin, pushing Arya’s outstretched hand back at her. “But I’ll let you give me something to eat later when I am, I promise,” she adds, when Arya’s frown threatens to spill over into a glare. This seems to mollify Arya and it certainly assuages Eren’s conscience, so the siblings make quick work of their meal and before long, gather in front of the pantry’s modestly sized door.

Edelgard pauses when they open it and start to shuffle through, and Eren turns to look back at her in surprise and worry.

“It’s going to be dangerous outside,” she warns quietly, looking at the two with some measure of worry. “I can’t pretend to know what awaits us, but this,” she gestures with the bloodstained claymore she has carried all the way from the top of the castle, “is likely not going to be enough to deal with it. So you’ll have to do _exactly_ as I tell you, no matter what it may be, okay?”

“Okay,” they answer quietly, exchanging worried glances.

“Good,” she replies with the ghost of a smile, and swings open the door to the outside.

The bitter early morning chill hits Eren with a frigid fury, and he awkwardly stumbles into Arya for warmth. Their jailors hadn’t gotten around to swapping his warm tunic or Arya’s fluffy coat for their thin black robes, thankfully, so it isn’t as bad as it could have been — Edelgard, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to be wearing much beyond said thin black robe.

But she does not even seem to shiver as she steps forward and shuts the door behind them, and looks around the area with a shrewd glance. The gushing river that passes through Magdred is much louder here at the back of the castle, hidden though it is by the swamp that permeates Gaspard lands entirely. She frowns in the direction it roars from, and then turns the other way to survey the slowly lightening sky.

“Which way…” she muses to herself.

“Won’t we be caught more easily in the light? We can cut through the swamp and swim through the river,” suggests Eren.

“Miss El isn’t wearing much, and the river is _cold_ this early,” scolds Arya. “We should sneak through the fields the other way! The crops are all grown up and tall now, so we can hide in them too!”

Eren frowns and realises she is likely correct, but—

“The cold has never bothered me much,” says Edelgard with a shrug. She smiles suddenly. “Thank you for being worried, though. But I think it will be better regardless if we don’t have to swim — I trust our chances better in the fields where it’s less foggy.”

Arya beams back up at her. Eren rolls his eyes but nods, grabs Arya’s hand, and they set forth without further fanfare.

The fog that has permeated Gaspard since yesterday dies down the closer they get to the fields of wheat, and Eren breathes a sigh of relief. Mugginess is normally a good thing for the crops, or so the farmers tell him, but there is a strange, cloying feeling to this fog that leaves him feeling vaguely nauseous. Sure enough, as they reach the edge of where a large, undulating field of wheat begins, the crop is a sickly green instead of the bright yellow it normally is by this time of the year. Even Arya frowns at it — but they have little choice but to begin to trudge through, as the morning light grows steadily brighter.

Eren observes their white-haired saviour steadily in the growing morning light. She crawls through the tall grass determinedly, pausing only occasionally to turn and check on him and Arya. Her mouth is set in a grim line, but it gives way easily to the occasional light smile as Arya pelts her with entirely random anecdotes about everything and nothing. Sometimes the smile reaches her eyes, too; in the light at this edge of dawn, the lilac hue of her eyes is much more visible than it had been in the dark when the stars reigned over the sky. It is a strikingly pretty shade, and he feels… contented, somehow, when the crinkle around them makes them shine just ever so slightly brighter. Arya seems just as taken by her, too, if the way she virtually sparkles every time Edelgard turns to check on her is any indication.

Eren hasn’t stopped wishing for his brother to show up, and Arya’s frequent fearful squeezes of his hand tell him she thinks much the same. But looking at the fiery pale angel who rose from the depths and clawed her way through darkness to save them — Eren doesn’t doubt for a moment that she’s the best alternative the Goddess could possibly have sent.

* * *

Edelgard stumbles through the field, the wound on her chest straining increasingly. Thales’ strike seems to have utterly undone the paltry healing she’d been given by her once-allies, and she can feel the sickening twist of a scar being strained beyond its limit. But the field of wheat they are wading through is tall enough for her to be able to duck low and pretend that moving through it is a task that needs to be conducted with the utmost reservation, and if she seems to pause too often to subtly swallow through the pain—

At least the children trailing along behind her seem to think it is only out of an abundance of caution.

“Miss El,” whispers Arya. “Are we there yet?”

Edelgard’s chest lurches again, and not only because of her wound. Her memories of her childhood are wounded and scarred and unsightly, just like she is — but beneath the veneer of pain and suffering, she has only just uncovered the echo of half-remembered joy hidden there all along. The precocious girl and her stoic brother had reminded her so sharply of a pair of beloved faces she can now barely recall that she had unthinkingly offered them a name she had long kept locked away in her heart — a name almost never uttered since she’d crawled half-dead out of that dungeon into her father’s horrified embrace.

 _How strange that I don’t even regret telling them_ , thinks Edelgard, as she pauses to reassure the two with a pained grimace that she tries desperately to turn into a calm smile.

“We should be nearing the mountain pass soon,” she promises in a whisper. “If you—”

The sudden stench of rotten flesh makes her freeze. The strange miasma manifesting as mist that mottles the landscape around them leaves a... heaviness on the back of her throat, but this sudden onslaught on her olfactory senses is so far beyond that, it makes her wonder if they haven’t inadvertently stumbled into a decaying corpse.

As if on cue, Eren and Arya both scrunch up their noses — but to their credit, they don’t make a noise beyond slightly shuffling around on the ground. She shakes her head at them, breathes _stay_ as quietly as she dares, and slowly pokes her head above the tall grass to try and locate the source of the horrific smell.

She frowns as she sees nothing but a continuous field of yellow-green, moving up to the edge of the road that links the lands of Gaspard to the world beyond. But the faint _hiss_ of the distant river seems to grow louder and louder...

Edelgard turns slowly to look at the source of the sound, and sees a massive, hulking shadow lumbering sluggishly through the path they have followed.

In the darkness of the night before the dawn, she can barely make out its features — at first, she thinks it is one of the damnable wolves that their class dealt with in the Red Canyon and then again in Remire. But this beast seems far larger, and appears far more dangerous. As it inches ever closer, she spots atop its crown a mantle of horns that she is sure would gore even an armoured knight instantly, and adorning its wide mandibles are rows of jagged, ugly teeth that drip with noxious saliva. Its claws are wide and scaly, and its hide is not hide but a grid of smooth, interwoven black scales that shimmer in the darkness and hint at impenetrable protection.

Edelgard ducks back down to face the siblings, jabs her arm behind her in the direction of a nearby farm’s outhouse, and chokes out, “ _Run._ ”

They take one look at what must surely be a frantic expression on her face and scramble off through the grass. She almost panics as the hissing of the creature's breath gets sharper at the sound they make as they rush off — _it’s following us by scent,_ she realises in horror — and stands to her full height as she steps discreetly away from the path the children are taking towards safety. The beast turns its head slowly to face her —

—and its ensuing roar nearly shatters her eardrums.

She barely scrambles out of the way in time, ignoring the scythe of pain that winds down her front as the beast chases after her with a thirst she has absolutely no desire to sate, and swallows nervously when its horns score deep gashes into the ground following its mad charge. The children are momentarily hidden, at least; she doubts even Castle Gaspard’s thick stone walls would stand a chance against this creature’s seemingly monstrous strength, but the visual obscurity will give her a chance to fend this creature off properly.

“Must eat,” it rumbles as it turns to face her.

She stares at it. Her ears must be deceiving her—

It turns and roars at her again, and she is so stunned that she is almost trampled before she feints deftly and uses its momentum to send it careening into the dirt behind her. It screams as it falls, and its rumble turns into a screech that makes her want to claw at her ears. “MUST EAT!” it demands.

She plants her feet firmly as it manages to right itself again. The beast is far too quick for her to outrun it, and she can spot no obvious weaknesses in its scaly hide. And if has even the slightest shred of intelligence, as its ability to produce speech surely implies…

Edelgard decides to meet its charge head on.

 _What a foolish sight I must seem,_ she muses as she feels faint wetness coat her torso. The absurdity of her situation strikes her suddenly, and she barely restrains the hysterical urge to giggle. Her black cloak surely ripples behind her in the early morning wind, and her disarrayed white hair must sway gently with it. Claymore aloft in both hands, her pose must mirror one given to the Emperors of old; facing down the jaws of oblivion at the end of a brave, heroic quest. An Emperor that looked like her would, miraculously, find a chink of light in the darkness, and at the last second surmount all odds to widen it enough for the light to spill through. The darkness would falter, and the light would gain on it and then overcome it entirely — and all that would be left would be joy for the triumph, and music for the glory of victory—

—but her wound has reopened and cries in earnest for relief, and Edelgard realises she is not quite the Emperor that she needs to be yet, as the coppery tang of her own blood assaults her nostrils.

She has not the prospects that a true monarch would, after all; hers lie only in being able to thrust her sword into the maw of the beast as it charges at her, and to hope the roof of its mouth is weak enough for her gambit to work before she bleeds out into unconsciousness. But the beast’s upper jaw juts out further than its lower, and those rows of wicked teeth will ensure that the music for whatever heroics she achieves will be bittersweet at best. A true ruler from the stories, surely, would have worked out a better way.

But she is only Edelgard, and she has only her own frail form to fall back on.

Her feet dig themselves deeper into the ground in challenge. If she is to burn the world and remake it anew, she cannot falter here. Her frail form will fulfil its final purpose before she will ever be content to let it fall — and she does not think her fate can be as pitiful as this: all her suffering reduced to a moment in which she finds herself inadequate.

A true Emperor from the histories would not have felt such, perhaps — but then, Emperors from histories have never thought to slay Goddesses, either. Their deeds may have let the light into the world, but light only lets darkness fester in perpetual shadow. Edelgard is not an Emperor like them, and she chides herself for thinking she ever wanted to be one.

She is the flame that will burn the world, and her fires will drag the darkness from its roots and purge it from the memory of existence.

The bright light of dawn breaks through the horizon, and the beast continues loping forward at her. She tracks its trajectory carefully, aiming to sidestep and thrust up into its skull—

—but astonishingly, it leaps instead and her carefully calculated stab only grazes the roof of its mouth, and its razor-sharp teeth score a furious gash along her arm as it lands and almost tramples her into the ground.

She rolls out of its follow-up smack on the ground, and again, then decides to surprise it when it goes for a third stomp by slamming her claymore into its descending paw.

It lets out the most horrendous screech, and backhands her with the offended limb hard enough to send her flying ten feet away.

Edelgard’s back grazes painfully across the rough ground, but the tall wheatgrass cushions her enough so she can attempt to stand as soon as she comes to a standstill, vision darkening at the edges. The steady loss of blood has left her feeling rather sluggish, and her thoughts fade away into primal instinct as she abandons her plot to retrieve the blade stuck in the howling creature’s hand and dashes at it instead.

Her prey doesn’t quite seem to know what to do with the reversal of roles, and weakly swipes at her with its uninjured limb as it violently shakes its impaled paw in a vain attempt to free it of its pain. But it can’t manage both at the same time, and Edelgard easily slips past its feeble swing into its guard and _stomps_ on its injured hard enough to elicit a sickening _crack_.

She vaguely feels blood trickle out of her ear at the deafening roar it issues, but she does not relent even as it attempts to bite her head off, and slams her foot onto its scaly hide again. But the vertigo from its roar has affected her balance, and as her foot rolls off the beast’s paw the edge of her robe snags on the claymore jutting out precariously close to where she jumped on its forelimb—

—and a swing of the beast’s head catches her in the back and sends her careening into the ground again.

The battle-thirst surging through her dwindling supply of blood lets her jump back up with nary a grunt of complaint, even as her foot — which she must have cut on the sword — now twinges in pain. But she barely notices it and tries to channel the fury of the fallen star in her blood instead. Her love for her lost siblings still burns brightly in her, after all, and she has two children to protect now. The mercenary-turned-Professor had told her how to carve her own magical talent from nothing but her ten-times-over accursed Crests, and if she had managed it once...

But the flames inside her sputter only feebly; utterly spent, for their fury has drained out of her with the blood she has lost.

The beast manages to dig the offending sword out of its paw with judicious application of its furiously gnashing teeth, and as the sword lands far away from her with a muted _clang,_ all Edelgard can think of is how loud her heart sounds as it pounds a furious beat in her ears.

 _I am here_ , it says.

_I am here, I am here, I am here._

Edelgard eyes the beast as it readies itself for another charge, and cracks her knuckles in a pose she is sure Caspar would love to see her repeat.

“Let me show you why I cannot lose,” she promises.

“BLOOD!” it roars back in challenge, and she almost smiles as it readies to leap at her again—

—before the beat of her heart turns into the beat of ferocious wings, something wraps itself around her ribs, and she is lifted effortlessly high into the air.

She lets out a surprised shout and tries to free herself—

“—stop _squirming_ , Edelgard, I’m trying to — would it _kill you_ to keep it flying straight, Claude?” hisses a very familiar voice from somewhere behind her ear, halting Edelgard’s frenzy entirely even as she rises even higher.

“Heya, Princess, good to see you’re okay!” says Claude’s cheery voice from the front of the saddle, ignoring the complaint. “And would it kill _you_ to be less snarky when I’m trying to save our skins?”

The voice growls at him, but says nothing, and instead twirls Edelgard in the air and deposits her securely atop the wyvern, facing its tail — and looking straight at a face illuminated a dizzying gold by the bright rays of the morning sun.

A face framed by vibrant green hair, with a pair of bright, emerald eyes, and an expression of equal parts indignation and relief set into them.

“Edelgard,” whispers Sothis, looking like she can’t decide whether to hug or throttle her. “What in Fódlan were you thinking?”

Edelgard barely manages to choke a _that you looked really good just now_ back down her ungrateful throat and manages to say evenly, “I was faced with little choice but to fight it head on. I had children to protect.”

“Children?” echo both Sothis and Claude, the latter swerving the wyvern back around.

“Ashe’s siblings,” confirms Edelgard.

The indignation slides off Sothis’ face like snow melting in the sun, and she shakes her head before bringing her face dangerously close to Edelgard’s — and smooshes her into a one-armed hug.

“I’m unspeakably happy you’re okay, but please... dispense with the unnecessary heroics next time, and _find cover_ like we’ve trained for,” she murmurs into Edelgard’s shoulder, releasing her after a brief squeeze.

“I thought heroics were practically required in a hostage situation such as this?” inquires Edelgard with a levity she is surprised she can still feel.

“Dorothea will happily inform you that this isn’t one of her plays where that might be the case, and that you have _allies_ to fall back on,” retorts Sothis instantly with a huff. Edelgard blinks in mystification, but Sothis only shakes her head with an odd gleam in her eyes. “Claude, how far are the other two?”

“Two minutes delayed, so they should be arriving right... about...”

“Now,” says Sothis, and slides gracefully off the back of the wyvern, the long _sshing_ of her sword being unsheathed ringing lower and lower as she falls to the ground.

Edelgard leans over in morbid fascination to watch her land smoothly onto the beast’s back as it howls in rage and thrashes around to try and swat at the woman on its back. Her standard issue Officer’s Academy Steel Sword bounces rather ineffectively off its hide, but she does not relent, and manages to drive it deep between the beast’s scales.

The beast bucks wildly, but Sothis simply jumps along with it, and each landing lets her twist her sword deeper into the thing’s back; the beast’s cries of pain grow louder as the morning grows dimmer.

Edelgard looks up to see two wyverns obscuring the sun, and though their riders are too far away and too clouded in light for her to truly see, the storm of dark magic that issues from one of them fills her with a warm sense of comfort and belonging.

The caster of the storm issues a sharp _hiss-crackle_ of Luna that slams into the beast just as Sothis leaps off it, and an arrow from the other wyvern slams into its opened maw at exactly the right instant to make it snap shut with a wet _gurgle_. Claude’s wyvern descends and skids to a halt beside the outhouse, and Edelgard slides off it in hurried disarray as he quickly gathers up his bow and runs ahead to join the rider of one of the still-airborne wyverns in peppering the beast with arrows. They don’t seem to be having much of an effect beyond pinning it in place, however—

—until a wall of Dark Spikes slams into it from above and shears through the beast’s armoured hide like a hot knife through butter.

It collapses into the bloodstained field without even a dying murmur.

Edelgard walks in a daze towards the fallen beast, the surge of her heart fading as the other wyverns land and their riders dismount, and she dimly registers the door of the outhouse behind her open.

_Pitter-patter-pitter—_

“Miss El!” squeals Arya. “You’re okay! Wait...” she continues, trailing off as she comes to a running stop next to Edelgard, her brother hot on her heels. “Ashe!” she squeals again even louder as soon as she spots a mop of silvery hair, and rushes to meet him. Edelgard chuckles weakly and nudges Eren, who is far more reserved in his pace.

“There’s nothing embarrassing about missing your brother,” she assures him with as much firmness as she can manage, and gets a sidelong glance and a frown in return. “Go on.”

He frowns deeper, but nods and follows his sister into Ashe’s awaiting embrace, as Sothis slowly sidles back up to Edelgard with a soft smile playing at her lips.

“I can’t pretend to not be immensely satisfied at this,” says Sothis in tones of immense satisfaction, turning back to look at Ingrid, Petra, and Hubert rushing towards them, “but do you see what I mean?”

“You’re definitely better at the heroics than I am,” rasps Edelgard weakly.

Sothis whips her head back to her. “Are you—” she cuts herself off and catches Edelgard as she starts to sink towards the ground, eyes widening in alarm. “Edelgard?”

“Sorry,” gasps Edelgard, gesturing feebly at her torso. “Took a — bit of a hit.”

“Lady Edelgard!” exclaims Hubert as he nears, speaking in tones of such concern that Edelgard almost tells him off out of reflex before she remembers that she may in fact be dying. Perhaps she’ll let the concern slide, this once...

“Concoction,” says Hubert frantically. Edelgard frowns at him. There is something... off about his demeanour, despite his obvious concern. “Please drink it, my Lady.”

She lets it go but doesn’t quite manage to restrain a fond eye-roll as she gulps down the offered vial, and Sothis gently lowers them both to the ground. Her body feels incredibly leaden in a way it has not since...

“You’re green,” realises Edelgard.

Sothis blinks her green orbs down at her, looking even more alarmed. “Not you, him,” corrects Edelgard, though the jerk of her head meant to point out Hubert turns into more of a loll that makes her vision sway dangerously.

“You... you must be gravely wounded, my Lady,” insists Hubert, looking frightened... but Edelgard knows her childhood friend, and fights down an entirely ill-timed giggle at his poorly-hidden embarrassment.

“Don’t be silly, I’ve survived worse. I just might need to... join Linhardt for a nap...” murmurs Edelgard, voice dropping. Sothis prods gently at the front of her robe, and curses colourfully when Edelgard involuntarily lets out a low, painful groan.

“I don’t think a concoction will be enough,” hisses Sothis in worried tones, as the sunlight grows brighter and Edelgard’s vision darkens. “We’ll need one of our wyverns.”

“Why are we not using these Warp Stones?” demands Hubert instead.

“Because,” Sothis dips a hand between the folds of Edelgard’s stolen robe and while normally that would have made her face burn hotter than any fire she could ever have summoned, it only dimly registers in her mind right now, “doing that shouldn’t leave my hand _dripping_ with blood. And I would rather she keep her guts inside her, which is _not_ a guarantee with a Warp as far as Garreg Mach,” replies Sothis tersely. “Petra, is your wyvern up for a trip to the camp?”

“She is not being able to fly quickly enough to remain hidden with three riders,” says Petra, shifting uneasily.

“Just you and her, then,” decides Sothis.

“I’ll be fine,” rasps Edelgard through her lightheadedness in protest. Or tries to, but she barely gets the first two words out before she coughs up a storm of blood.

“Yeah, no you won’t,” mutters Sothis in frustration as she gathers Edelgard into a smooth princess-carry and rushes to Petra’s wyvern, which snorts at them in greeting. “Heroics — practically — required — hm?”

“I thought I could be good at them...” Edelgard manages to murmur back.

“Wish I knew how to turn into a dragon,” gripes Sothis quietly to herself, securing Edelgard into the saddle. “This would have been a lot easier then.”

The fog momentarily slips from Edelgard’s mind, and her body feels like it has been drenched in a bucket of ice-cold water.

“What?” she rasps, her mind stuck replaying the words. “You... what?”

“Wishful thinking,” says the woman with green eyes and green hair, frowning in surprise at Edelgard. Edelgard stares back at her unthinkingly, even as her fatigue reasserts itself, and her eyes begin to slide shut of their own accord. Sothis shakes her head, sighing anxiously.

“You’ll be okay,” Edelgard hears her saviour say, and something soft presses itself into the back of her head as Petra saddles up and looks back at her with a reassuring, “Fear not, Edelgard, you are going to being— _will be_ healed by Professor Manuela before you can even be blinking!” Edelgard manages to nod at her in thanks, and weakly reassures Hubert that she’ll be fine as the wyvern _thumps_ its mighty wings against the ground and lifts her burdens into the air.

 _Foolish girl,_ Edelgard tells herself, as Sothis’ presence fades away into the wind, and the wyvern lets her soar into the the brightness of the dawn. _You should have feared it more... now you’ll have to kill her, too._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have developed a bad habit of adding too much personality to (not-really-)OCs but imo it's criminal a good boi like Ashe has no real mention of his siblings beyond the fact that they exist in the game, so here i am exercising my right to wish fulfillment and giving him an adorable family
> 
> edelgard is getting Better at Being a Person™! but at a very glacial pace because she still does nearly suicidal stuff and not to mention: oh no... potential dragon evil, but human crush good... gay panic time!


	16. Blue Skies and a Battle (Rain)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Forces array and collide, and the enemy hatches a plot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter got so long I had to cut it in two and the first part is still this long... whoops :)
> 
>  **Update (2020-Oct-12)** : Moved the Lysithea POV scene from the beginning of next chapter (Chapter 17) to the end of this chapter. If you haven’t read that scene in this chapter before, do it before you proceed on!
> 
> cw: graphic violence, body horror, graphic depictions of torture (specifically from the line that starts with 'Remember that?' and up to the line that starts with 'Beat by beat')

“I expected this to go as poorly to plan as it possibly could, yet I’m still disappointed,” grunts Catherine, burying Thunderbrand to the hilt in an axe-wielding woman’s guts.

Shamir grunts back in affirmation, and fires off an arrow into the skull of a swordsman trying to rush her down.

“Nice one,” adds her errant partner, cheerfully decapitating another rebel and adding another layer of bloodsplatter to her increasingly less shiny armour.

“You too,” replies Shamir brusquely, pausing to catch her breath when she sees the immediate battlefield clear of targets.

The errant Lord Lonato had been summarily convinced of the error of his ways when it occurred to him that the lives of his children were on the line and the Church he so despised was the only way to guarantee their rescue. The quickest ceasefire in Fódlan’s history had been put into force shortly after.

 _But,_ thinks Shamir with a sigh, _it seems the rest of the Western Church disagrees with his assessment of the issue._ The remaining rebels had decried the man a puppet of the false Archbishop, and had summarily taken command of their remaining armies to launch a renewed offensive against their former allies. The vanguard of the Knights under Alois had rushed to redraw the battle lines in the ongoing offensive — and Catherine and Shamir, the most notoriously unsubtle duo in the Knights of Seiros, had been part of the plan meant to quietly shut down the rebels’ scouting parties from far behind enemy lines.

Their stealth had predictably lasted all of two hours before they’d found themselves neck-deep in the middle of a rebel battalion.

 _Typical_ , thinks Shamir, snorting to herself.

“Say, Shamir,” says Catherine slowly, drawing her out of her musings. “D’you think... hmmm.”

Shamir frowns at her, but Catherine does not turn to her from where she stands cautiously surveying the barren landscape scattered with nothing but corpses strewn about, and continues staring at what seems to be thin air.

“Spit it out,” urges Shamir.

“Maybe it’s just me, but... hasn’t Lady Rhea been a bit different lately?” wonders Catherine haltingly. “Not — not that I mind, mind you,” she adds hastily, “but... what exactly has been happening while I was away on my assignment?”

Shamir feels a spike of annoyance shoot down her throat, and feels another follow it shortly after when she can’t quite figure out _why_ Catherine wondering about Rhea would annoy her.

“I’ve no idea,” returns Shamir, cooler than she intended. She almost winces at her tone, but Catherine is as oblivious as always, and only keeps frowning off into the distance. “We’re not exactly the best of buddies,” she adds dryly, leaving the _like you are_ unsaid.

“That’s exactly the thing!” exclaims Catherine, turning to Shamir with wide eyes. “ _Nobody_ is the best of buddies with Lady Rhea. Not even Seteth, and not even me,” she pouts, and Shamir rolls her eyes, “and yet there she was _not_ condemning Lord Lonato to execution like — like she _did_ have someone who might have been the best of buddies with her, someone who might have told her to let it go!”

“And that’s somehow a bad thing?” inquires Shamir dubiously.

“You’re not gonna hear me complaining when his ceasefire with the Church means we’ve only gotta fight about a fifth of the rebels,” laughs Catherine. “But I’m just wondering... because even a few months ago, she wouldn’t have hesitated to separate his neck from his shoulders. What could it mean?”

“Maybe it’s the kid,” offers Shamir, bending to retrieve a bloodied arrow from a corpse, and gesturing for Catherine to follow her to cover in a small nearby barn.

“Kid? What kid?” questions Catherine rapidly, falling easily into lock-step with her.

“The one who looks like she could be Rhea’s kid,” replies Shamir drolly. “Green hair, green eyes, same nose — you’ve met her.”

“Sothis,” exclaims Catherine, looking thunderstruck. “You think... you think she’s Lady Rhea’s daughter?”

Shamir only shrugs in reply, swinging open the barn door cautiously. There is a fresh set of tracks in the mud leading to it, but none leading back out, which must mean...

“That... that makes—” Catherine pauses to punch out the rebel who’d been hiding in ambush inside the barn, “— _way_ too much sense. Wow...”

“It does?” blinks Shamir, relaxing only when she has checked every nook for any other stragglers. “I just made that up.”

“Hey,” frowns Catherine, nudging Shamir with her shoulder. “Stop messing with me.”

Shamir ignores her to set her quiver down next to the barn’s entrance, and settles in to observe the landscape.

The early morning light paints the cold land a warm, earthen colour, and brings the illusion of life to the harsh, wintry tundra west of Faerghus. The fields of wheat plentiful in the warmer, muggier lands of Gaspard fade away into nonexistence this far from the warm climes of Central Fódlan, and what little winter crops grow here have been trampled many times over by the forces that have been warring here for long weeks now. Shamir remembers a faded image of her Dagda looking much the same, the memory scuffed at the edges like old, faded parchment. She remembers being forced to put her home to the torch, full of a life of love. She remembers the cold, desolate desperation born of the bone-deep urge to save the one she loved. _Better to burn away all evidence of our lives than let them think we might still live,_ she remembers thinking—

It hadn’t amounted to much, in the end. Maybe these rebels feel the same, crushing their pwn livelihoods underfoot while they march for a cause they feel just. How cruel of her gods — _careful, Shamir, you’re supposed to think they’re false now_ — to make her the instrument to deny them their hope. But perhaps none can be a better destroyer of hope than one who has lived and breathed the destruction of her own hope, and love, and all she has ever known.

She loosely holds an arrow in position, and settles in to wait. If she must play the executioner...

“How’s Cyril doing?” murmurs Catherine, her voice _far_ too close to Shamir’s ear.

Shamir almost stabs her with the arrow in her hand before she catches herself. Catherine looks proud at having elicited a twitch from her, and hits her with a supremely self-satisfied look that is just... too adorable to be mad at.

_Wait, adorable—?_

“You’re going to lose an eye if you keep that up,” warns Shamir, steadfastly ignoring her train of thought with resolution crafted meticulously by a decade of practice.

“Now _there’s_ a thought,” grins Catherine, stroking her chin contemplatively. She mimes covering an eye with a hand, and admires herself in the reflection of her other gleaming, blood-spotted gauntlet. “I’d look pretty dashing, don’t you think?”

“He’s doing well,” replies Shamir, deciding not to indulge her partner’s woolgathering lest Catherine learn she finds the idea entertaining and beat it well past the point of annoyance. “Complains about not getting enough training, mostly. Wanted me to take him along on a mission too, for whatever reason... I don’t think I’ll ever understand what goes through that boy’s head.”

“Hmmm,” hums Catherine, eyeing Thunderbrand’s glowing edge and sounding like she disagrees. Shamir raises a brow when Catherine turns to her with a considering glance.

“Pretty easy to understand, I’d say,” elaborates Catherine.

“Oh?” challenges Shamir.

“Yeah, he loves you,” laughs Catherine. “Now, granted, I haven’t spent too much time with him — but in my estimation, he probably saw you, an outsider to Fódlan, being treated with respect _he_ never got... and then when you showed him the slightest kindness, I bet he came to think of you as the best thing since sliced bread.”

“How... profound,” says Shamir quietly. Then she snorts. “I wasn’t aware that thing in your head was capable of such complex thought.”

Catherine laughs, and wiggles her fingers threateningly in the air. “Careful, partner, I know where you’re ticklish after that last mission,” she warns, eyes crinkled in a mischievous smile.

Shamir flushes in embarrassment. “You’re impossible,” she mutters, turning away to look outside again.

“Impossibly lovable!” declares Catherine, the grin evident in her voice even when Shamir isn’t looking at her. “Though you might have me beat on that score, especially considering your beloved Cyril.”

“Beloved?” snorts Shamir. “Hardly. I don’t... I tolerate him, that’s all.”

“How cold!” exclaims Catherine, theatrically raising a hand to her heart. “But you can’t fool me. I might have believed you to be that heartless with how icy you were when you joined the Knights, but now... heh. You’ve got _layers_ to you, Shamir.”

Shamir frowns at the landscape. “Is that so?” she mutters absently. Something is... off. “Catherine.”

“I feel it,” murmurs Catherine back, the jovial tone in her voice utterly vanished, replaced by something far colder. Thunder Catherine, to most people, is the grandiose sound of lightning; thought to be the afterimage of a majestic spectacle, the vanguard of overwhelming glory. But to Shamir, Thunder Catherine is the empty gong that reverberates in the hollow husks left behind by the searing fury of a storm, or the fumes of smoke rising from the destruction she carries out with the unstoppable diligence of nature.

(They are good partners, in that respect. Catherine the tremendous, carving into hearts her name and blade alike; and Shamir the imperceptible, painting into the sky with arrows as her lightnings.)

“There,” whispers Shamir. “In the distance, next to that rocky outcropping.”

“I see it,” frowns Catherine. “What in the world is—”

The air shimmers, and warps. The world itself quails, and from the aberration in the air spins a disc of purple energy into existence. It grows on itself, seeming first to become a sphere, but then flattens and shears into the ground, edges blurred with the speed of its rotation. From where she stands tensely, Shamir cannot make out much except the sheer expanse of the purple surface exposed by the disc.

Then, out of its unfathomable depths, steps out a hulking shape, larger than anything Shamir has ever seen move. The sun tries to paint it in warm hues, but its scaly hide smothers even the brightness of the morning into a fell tone, and its ferocious howl shakes loose a sliver of fear Shamir hadn’t realised she still carried in her heart.

The shape lumbers slowly forward, inching in the direction of Gaspard. “We should—” Catherine starts to say, but cuts herself off with widened eyes when the disc redoubles in size.

Then steps another shape out of it. Another, another, another — they pour out in droves, almost a score strong, and the combined strength of their roars makes the sturdy barn over Shamir’s head feel flimsy and faint. She almost does not notice the tiny group of much smaller, human-shaped figures step out of the disc before it collapses into itself and vanishes like it had never existed.

“We should stop them,” says Catherine, whose thunder sounds leagues too distant to be of any use. “Shamir?”

“We can’t,” rasps Shamir, who feels no shame in admitting that she is horribly and utterly outclassed against such a force, particularly after that debacle in the Red Canyon against much less ferocious-looking beasts.

“We can’t just _give up—_ ” Catherine starts to say hotly.

“We _won’t_ ,” hisses Shamir back. “We’ll retreat and warn everyone down the line, and try to marshal reinforcements — not even we can take down more than maybe two of those _things_ at a time, Catherine.”

“You’re saying we should _run away_?!” demands Catherine. “All of our forces on the way will—”

“—be able to hold them off long enough until they get support, because if you haven’t realised, these — _whatever they are_ — are going to take the upper mountain passes based on the direction they’re headed and how many of them there are. It’s a treacherous route, but it’s also a clear path to the Oghma Mountains,” cuts Shamir, fear spiking deeper into her heart with every word she takes towards the inevitable conclusion of her thought.

“And there’s almost no Knights stationed at Garreg Mach right now,” breathes Catherine, paling. “We — we should warn everyone down the line.”

Shamir doesn’t bother restraining a roll of her eyes, and grabs Catherine’s arm to march them out of the back entrance of the barn.

* * *

“Petra thinks she’s offended you somehow, you know,” says Ferdinand quietly.

Dorothea gives him a horrified look. “That — that couldn’t be further from the truth!” she cries.

He shrugs ambivalently, and holds his spyglass up to his eye again. A quick scan of the landscape of Magdred Way reconfirms the situation: the light of the morning has slashed through the heavy fog, and Gaspard's militia have quickly and gladly laid down their arms upon the request of the Lord Lonato. Ferdinand is rather glad, in truth; seeing the desperate state of their equipment, and knowing that if things had played out even slightly differently, he would have had to join the knights in fighting what were essentially just farmers armed with not much beyond rakes and hopelessness...

Thunder Catherine had really saved everyone a _ridiculous_ amount of trouble by managing to rescue Lord Lonato so he could order his people to stand down. Ferdinand had so badly wanted to interrogate the man and shake some sort of an answer out of him: _why_ had he ever thought that involving his people in this ill-considered rebellion would be a good idea in the first place? Especially when most of them were poor farmers who had never even _heard_ of the brutality of battle, much less witnessed its horrifying aftermath?

“...her. Hey, are you even listening to me?” Dorothea is saying angrily.

Ferdinand flushes. “My apologies, Dorothea,” he says quickly. “I was concentrating on scouting the landscape so we don’t miss anything.”

Dorothea frowns crossly at him. “Don’t insult me, please,” she says with a roll of her eyes. “You can’t see much through that thing without moving it around, and your eyes have been perfectly still for the last _minute_.”

Ferdinand flushes deeper. “I... there was a lot on my mind. You have my most heartfelt apologies,” he pleads.

Dorothea sighs. “I don’t want your apologies, I want you to explain what you meant. Why does Petra think she’s offended me?” she demands.

“Well, I — you’ve spoken more words to even the gatekeeper than you have to her, ever since Remire. And she’s been trying to have lunch with you, but you’ve always left the dining hall when she gets there... I know you are not a noble, but such conduct is rude regardless!” he exclaims.

She stares at him, the irritation in her eyes bleeding away to horrified regret. “I — oh, Goddess. I’ve... I failed to do my duty and watch her back in the battle at Remire, and because of me she almost —” her voice cracks, “she almost _died_ , Ferdie. I just — I didn’t really think I deserved to be around her, after that.”

Ferdinand frowns at her. “I don’t profess to know much about your friendship, but I think she would prefer to make such a decision herself... as it is, I cannot blame her for thinking that you no longer want anything to do with her, if that is how you act around her,” he lectures.

To her credit, Dorothea looks properly chastised, and averts her gaze off to the landscape far below the watchtower in which they are situated. “Bee or not, you’re right on this count... you and Manuela both,” she sighs.

Being called a bee still greatly perplexes him, but Ferdinand decides to let it be, for now. “Manuela? You usually call her by her title,” he wonders instead.

“Oh, old habits — she’s my mentor from my Mittelfrank Opera days, and we all called each other by our given names back then,” she replies, with a faraway look in her eyes. Ferdinand smiles, glad he has inadvertently lifted her spirits. “She spoke to me about that, actually, and your little rant just now reminded me of what she said.”

“Oh, truly?!” exclaims Ferdinand. “I am honoured to know I have echoed our wonderful Professor’s wisdom, however unintentionally!”

“Don’t let it get to your head,” retorts Dorothea, rolling her eyes. “She just told me something I think I’d forgotten before she mentioned it, but I wasn’t really... I don’t think I was thinking very straight when she said it, so it went in through one ear and straight out the other,” she says with a rueful chuckle.

“What had you forgotten?” queries Ferdinand curiously.

“The importance of a choice,” replies Dorothea with a slight smile. Ferdinand blinks at her, mystified, but Dorothea’s smile only widens at his confusion. “Nevermind that, I suppose it would be a bit tricky for you to understand. So how do you think I should apologise to Petra, Ferdie? Shall I cook her a dish from her homeland?”

He scratches his chin absently, thinking of the most tactful way to let her know how terrible an idea that is, given her infamous skill — or lack thereof — at cooking.

“Er... while that would not be a terrible idea... oh! Perhaps, since Petra knows of and admires your talent at singing, you could sing her a ballad from her homeland! I am sure the library at the Monastery holds tomes from Brigid that would be helpful,” he suggests desperately.

Dorothea’s smile fades into a contemplative look of surprise. “I... that doesn’t seem like an awful idea, actually. I’d probably have to ask her how to say any of the words for it to not be an unmitigated disaster, but... hm. Maybe I was too hasty in my initial judgement of you, Ferdie!”

Ferdinand beams at her. “Well, I knew that winning you over with my natural abundance of charm would not be difficult, though I am saddened it took so long,” he says.

Dorothea smiles again, though there is something razor-sharp not quite hidden behind this one. “Don’t get me wrong, I do still hate you!” she exclaims cheerily. “I just think you may have something buried very, _very_ deep within that just might be worth not hating.”

He frowns indignantly at her. “Well, I—”

A roar from the distance interrupts him. He fumbles with the spyglass in his hand and smacks it painfully into his eye, but eventually manages to right it and locate the source of the roar as originating from the watchtower where Sylvain and Mercedes are stationed, near the road leading to western Faerghus. He frowns, and aims the spyglass lower to find whatever manner of beast is making such a horrendously loud noise—

—and drops it from between numb fingers when he catches a glimpse of it.

“You don’t need a spyglass to see that,” croaks Dorothea, her face pale as snow. But she barely hesitates before turning to him with a suddenly determined look, sliding down the ladder to the ground, and running in the direction of the besieged watchtower.

Ferdinand stares, stunned for a moment at the speed of her movement. Then he grabs his lance and rushes after her. “Wait, Dorothea!” he calls, sprinting.

“Keep up!” she shouts back, an odd warble in her voice. “I’ll hit it with Thoron while it hasn’t noticed us, and you can finish it off. If that Sylvain has any sense left in him, he’ll—”

“Hey, ugly!” comes Sylvain’s distant taunt. “Betcha can’t get all the way up here, huh?!”

The humongous creature that is assaulting the watchtower screams, and Dorothea slows to a crawl as they approach it, hidden from view behind a clump of fortunately planted trees. He swallows when he realises its terrifying maw is _slathered_ in blood, and bits and pieces of metal and gristle hang off its horrifically sharp teeth. But that is not so different from the monstrous wolves they had unfortunately fought in Remire, even though this beast is larger and looks far more terrifyingly capable of ripping apart a person — no, what had made Ferdinand’s heart stutter in his chest and his grip on his spyglass fail him, was the sight of an utterly shattered Knight of Seiros gored atop the beast’s mantle of horns.

The horror of the sight reminds Ferdinand of their brush with fire and death at Remire, but he has no time to dwell on it because the beast decides to slam its bulk with a terrifying _crash_ into the base of the watchtower. The thick stone creaks dangerously, but does not give way — although only just, if the manner in which the tower sways as a result is any indication. An ominous silence and a heavy _thump, thump, thump_ follows its attack; as if the heart of the world itself shudders at the onslaught.

Sylvain does not taunt it again.

“Hey, ugly!” echoes Dorothea with a yell, jumping out from behind the tree that hides her. Ferdinand gapes at her audacity, but her arm is already crackling with electricity when the creature turns to her and she lets the beam of energy slam into the beast’s side. To his dread, it somehow reacts quickly enough to almost completely evade it, though its right hindlimb is not fortunate enough to survive being burnt to a crisp. Dorothea stares at it, transfixed with a look of horrified surprise as it still levies a limping, screaming charge at them—

—before the heavy _thump, thump, thump_ resolves into the form of a wyvern furiously beating its wings, atop which rides a blonde woman in the uniform of the Officer’s Academy.

Ingrid derails the beast with an expertly thrust lance driven into the wound Dorothea had made. The beast’s charge misses Dorothea widely and it crashes headfirst into the nearby thicket of trees, the impact dislodging the unfortunate Knight from atop its horns.

The beast teeters, stunned, before it falls onto its side with a thunderous crash atop the slain Knight with an ear-piercing _screech-squelch_ of crushed metal and flesh.

Sylvain is not content to let the beast struggle in its prone position for long before he leaps from the watchtower with a roar and a gust of blue magic at his back, lance extended. Ferdinand watches, stunned, as the magic carries Sylvain far beyond the limits of a natural jump and lets him drive his lance squarely into the beast’s exposed side with a crackling _thunk_.

Ingrid scrambles to reverse the momentum of her winged mount’s charge and rushes back to help Sylvain, but the beast thrashes and bucks him off into the distance before she can get there, and clips her mount in the leg with a swipe as its rider tries desperately to press her advantage. Ingrid’s wyvern screeches loudly, catching the beast’s attention — and Ferdinand finally sees his opportunity.

He positions himself behind the slowly rising monster as quickly as he can before he drives his lance into the opening in its hide torn by Dorothea. Ingrid yells in challenge and tries to pin the beast by thrusting her lance into its maw held open by a roar of agony, but it snaps shut and bats her weapon away with the side of its head before it can reach its target properly. The beast roars again and rotates sharply to face Ferdinand, the lance stuck in its side making a terrifying _whoosh_ as it cuts through the air—

—and Dorothea slams another beam of Thoron through its open mouth and out of its spine.

The beast haltingly stumbles towards them, as if it has not quite realised that it has died yet, before Ferdinand heaves his lance to the side in the most furious motion he can manage and slams the beast’s massive face onto the ground, where it twitches only once before becoming utterly still.

Ingrid’s wyvern glides gracelessly to a halt on the ground, and she hops off to tend to its injured leg — only for the animal to shake off the torn armour on its shin, revealing a perfectly uninjured limb underneath.

“Did you get Edie? And Ashe’s siblings?” questions Dorothea anxiously as she steps around the slain beast with a wary look. Ingrid turns to grin and nod at Dorothea’s question, who replies with a hand over her heart and a muttered _thank goodness_. Ferdinand feels some of his tension fade away; Edelgard is certainly his rival, but she is also his house leader and his friend, and he has always wished her to remain in the best of health.

(Purely so he can continue to show her how much more talented he is without having an unfair advantage, of course.)

Ingrid’s smile at Dorothea fades to a roll of her eyes when Sylvain runs up to them with a _whoop_ of joy, but she adds a, “Edelgard had already done most of the work herself, though,” to Dorothea before she turns to Sylvain.

“Your timing there couldn’t have been better, my dearest Ingrid!” cheers Sylvain, prodding the fallen beast gingerly with a foot, before Dorothea can do much more than blink at Ingrid’s statement. Ferdinand eyes the downed creature apprehensively, but it does not give much cause for concern, producing not even the slightest of stirs.

“I must agree with Sylvain — you have our thanks for your incredibly timely assistance,” offers Ferdinand gratefully, when he is sure the beast has truly been felled. “But how did you know to get here?”

“I didn’t,” frowns Ingrid through the relief on her face, waving off his thanks. “But this isn’t the only one of these things out there — more of them seem to be streaming in from the north-west. And there’s something else — they’re not like the wolves at Remire Village. They’re...”

She breaks off to greet Mercedes, who has descended the tower and jogs over to fret over them all alternately.

“Are you sure you’re not injured from your rescue mission? I knew I should have come along...” worries Mercedes, running a worried hand over Ingrid’s arm. Ingrid blinks and stutters out an, “I-I’m fine! Really!” which prompts Dorothea to gently grab her other shoulder with a frown and prod her for possible wounds. The burgeoning blush on Ingrid’s face blooms brightly at their combined attentions, and Ferdinand briefly feels a stab of pity for the usually composed woman.

“The mere thought of your wonderful healing magic is enough to cure me of all ailments, Mercedes,” asserts Sylvain sincerely when Mercedes turns to check on him, prompting her to laugh.

“Does his flirting get worse when he’s defensive or is he always like this?” mutters Dorothea to Ingrid.

“Dorothea!” replies Sylvain with a gasp of feigned outrage. “I resent that implication! After all,” Sylvain searches around for a potential ally, and lights up when his eyes fall onto Ferdinand, “I’m sure Ferdinand here would agree — putting a smile on a lovely lady’s face is _always_ a worthwhile endeavour... even if the method isn’t terribly creative.”

Ferdinand blinks, even as Dorothea raises a challenging brow at him. “Er — I might say I agree with the general principle,” he says as delicately as he can manage, watching in trepidation as Dorothea’s eyebrow climbs higher and the beginnings of a glare manifest in her gaze, “but I would extend it to everyone! After all, a smile on a handsome gentleman’s face is no less worthwhile than that on a lovely lady’s!”

Now even Sylvain raises his brows at him, while Dorothea’s challenging look gives way utterly to amused surprise. Perhaps he ought to clarify. “O-of course, I mean only that we should all strive to embody the most noble principle of equality, not that I have a preference one way or the other—” Mercedes lets out a short giggle, and Ferdinand hastily continues, “—but in saying that, there is of course nothing wrong with _having_ a preference—” Dorothea covers her mouth with a hand, shoulders shaking silently, and Ferdinand decides to turn to a bewildered Ingrid in desperation, “—you were saying something about this beast being strange?”

Ingrid blinks, the bemusement in her eyes fading. “Oh! Yes, we came across one of them attacking Edelgard as we were attempting to rescue her. We managed to defeat it, but it...”

“It...?” prompts Dorothea curiously.

“See for yourself,” says Ingrid grimly, pointing at the beast in their midst.

At first, it seems to be much the same; its eyes remain glazed over in death, its jaw keeps its stink of rot and drips noxious saliva onto the ground, and its horns keep shining a bloodstained red. But to Ferdinand’s dismayed surprise, the horns start receding before his very eyes. The mandibles of sharp, wicked teeth shrink, and the green hide of the beast cracks, folds in on itself, and begins to lighten in colour. The beast grows smaller, and the hole reaching from its jaw to its spine grows smaller still...

...until the beast remains not a fallen beast, but a young man — barely recognisable as a person. A stark purple miasma follows the shape of his veins and makes them stand out sharply against too-pale skin, and his bones jut out from his body at grotesque angles. His glazed over eyes remain the cold, inky black spheres that had shone a dull red on the beast, but the dark scales have faded to reveal the man’s purple-splotched chest with a ribcage protruding from it... and a hollow space seeming to have been hacked into its midst. Inside the jagged, rust-brown hole, a bundle of blackened arteries and veins wrap around a glowing, round stone in a mockery of a heart — a stone carved with the unmistakable symbol of a Crest Ferdinand has never seen before.

“Dear Goddess,” breathes Mercedes, echoing the horror reflected in the stares of all gathered.

* * *

Manuela sighs.

“You’re grumpy,” the girl proclaims. Her brother nods vigorously.

“And mean,” she adds, undoubtedly bolstered by his support. Her brother nods again, even more emphatic this time.

Manuela sighs again. _Damn that Jeralt for foisting these brats off on me, and damn that boy for not dealing with his fussy siblings before gallivanting off to help..._

“Edelgard’s wound is very delicate, and we need to give her space to heal,” she tries again. The children do not seem convinced by this, if their frowns are any indication. “If—” she starts, and flounders, casting around desperately in the furthest recesses of her mind for inspiration. Dorothea had been very skittish as a child, too... how had Manuela ever won her over? She mulls it over, unable to remember much of her time as Mittelfrank’s diva through the fog of stage glamour and countless nights deep in the bottle... until the memory of a rare, chilly Enbarr night taps politely on her mind, as if timidly waiting to be recalled.

“If you let her heal without disturbing her rest,” declares Manuela with all the authority of a woman certain she is about to triumph, “I’ll buy you all the candy you could ever want!”

Their frowns deepen, and she has to fight back a gasp of dismay. She had been so sure... but how—

“Cookies,” says the boy.

Manuela blinks.

“Chocolate,” agrees the girl.

Manuela blinks again.

“I... we have a deal?” she half-questions, wondering if she is being extorted by children half her size and a quarter her age.

 _Extorted again,_ the memory of a much younger and toothily grinning Dorothea reminds her.

They nod solemnly in unison, as if confirming her thought along with her words. “I, Arya Ubert,” begins the girl, “agree—”

“Eren! Arya!” exclaims a _very_ welcome voice that almost makes Manuela fold over in relief. She turns to see Claude dismounting his wyvern, and Ashe already hurrying over towards the tent she has been trying so hard to guard.

“Ashe!” exclaim his siblings, rushing him with hugs that he handles with grace clearly born of practice, as he easily balances them both between his arms.

“I hope they didn’t cause too much trouble for you, Professor,” says Ashe earnestly. Manuela eyes him, now wondering if his innocence, too, is all an act.

He blinks back at her owlishly.

“...no, not too much trouble,” decides Manuela eventually, shaking her head at the ridiculousness of that thought. _Heh. Maybe the Goddess gave him these demons for siblings to make up for his utter lack of guile._

“You look like you’ve just been swindled, Professor,” remarks Claude casually as he nears them, watching Ashe fuss over his brother and sister with a fond look in his eye.

Manuela sniffs primly. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she informs him. He chuckles at her, although the laughter doesn’t quite reach his eyes. It never usually does, either, but something about the especially forced sound of it now makes her wonder...

“Anything interesting on the battlefield?” she queries with a lowered voice, not certain if she wants an honest answer.

He gives it to her anyway. “The monster that Edelgard was fighting, the one that turned into a dead woman with a Crest Stone in her chest? There’s a bunch more of them I’ve seen prowling around now, and I’m beginning to think there’s a whole lot of them gathered around somewhere with the way they’ve been moving and attacking.”

Her blood runs cold. She’d examined that mutilated, misshapen body Claude and Sothis had brought with them, slung on the back of a wyvern — the body with a hole where its heart was meant to be, with the stone of an unknown Crest occupying the space instead. Even Hanneman had looked horrified when he’d seen it; he’d muttered things about _too far_ and _despicable_ , not even giving the Crest Stone a second glance before storming off. For there to be more of them, and a _lot_ more like Claude is implying...

Her thoughts are interrupted by a muffled groan from the tent next to her. “I should check on Edelgard,” she says to Claude, and excuses herself to duck inside.

The tent is bare of all accessories but a small sheet on the ground, with a small knapsack lying on it. A small bucket that reeks of alcohol stands on the ground beside the bag, and the small silvery handles of her life-saving instruments stick out of it. Next to the sheet is situated the only furnishing in the sparse infirmary: a makeshift wooden bed, where a white-haired woman lies tangled up in the sweat-drenched sheets, looking back at Manuela with an unreadable look in her lilac eyes. Manuela _clicks_ her tongue as she approaches, and eyes her student with a look containing equal parts empathy and disappointment.

“I tried,” offers Edelgard weakly. “The nightmares don’t like to let me rest, though.”

Manuela _hums_ sympathetically. “Your healing would be much faster if you did, but I suppose it can’t be helped... still, having a Crest does mean you’ll be in that bed for less time than us regular mortals would have needed regardless.”

Edelgard snorts. “I’d trade any day,” she says, throwing her head back onto her pillow and gazing balefully at the tent’s low ceiling.

“Those little imps outside will be glad, though,” replies Manuela dryly, eliciting a small but genuine smile from Edelgard. Manuela eyes her student contemplatively. “You’re being unusually forthcoming with your feelings today,” she notes. “Usually I have to pry for much longer.”

“Maybe I’ve realised the futility of resistance,” says Edelgard, her smile fading into humourlessness. Manuela gets the sense that they’re speaking on vastly different levels, but elects to let it go for the sake of letting Edelgard air more of her unhealthily cagey mind.

“Less work for me, then,” says Manuela with an easy smile. “Anything you need, Edelgard?”

“Just some water, please,” replies Edelgard politely. _It seems that’s about as far as her newfound openness wanted to go,_ thinks Manuela ruefully.

She fetches a waterskin from her bag and hands it to Edelgard, who sits up and gulps it down greedily. Manuela waits for her to finish drinking, and offers, “I wasn’t talking about just water, though.”

Edelgard hands back the waterskin, seeming greatly revitalised. “Thank you for offering, Professor,” she says firmly, “but I doubt there’s very much you can do about the situation I’m in.”

“I would Heal you more if I could, but there are always more Knights for me to tend to, and we have a staggering lack of healers,” replies Manuela regretfully. “Not to mention there apparently more of that... person-turned-beast that attacked you out there now.”

“I — I was speaking figuratively,” says Edelgard, blinking in surprise. Her gaze sharpens and she sits up straighter as she registers Manuela’s last statement. “More of them?”

“So I hear,” replies Manuela.

Edelgard frowns, and says, “Hubert’s magic seems to be effective against them, from what I saw in our fight. Speaking of, where did he...”

Manuela snorts. “That boy... whatever you said to him after I sealed your wound made him fret over you like a particularly dour mother hen — I had to kick him out of here so I could finish Healing you in peace. He’s assisting the Knights now, I believe,” she replies, which strangely does not seem to reassure Edelgard very much. Edelgard leans forward and says eagerly, “I could—”

Manuela frowns and interrupts her by gently pushing her back down. “Not that you’re in any state to worry about that for at least another day, young lady.” Edelgard frowns back, but accepts her situation with a put-upon sigh.

“As you say, Professor,” she says, resigned. But before Manuela can properly express her satisfaction at her student’s surprising obedience, the tent flap opens and admits a tall, white-haired man with a bushy moustache and dull brown armour.

“I _expressly_ requested that nobody enter this tent,” says Manuela harshly, stepping forward to block his view of the bed.

“I have urgent matters to discuss with—” Lonato starts to say, but Manuela cuts through his statement, unflinching.

“Whatever you have to discuss can wait,” she informs him brusquely. “ _Nobody_ will disturb my patient while she is—”

“It’s alright, Professor,” sighs Edelgard from behind her. Manuela turns to see her bunching up the sheets to her shoulders and sitting up slightly, and reluctantly moves aside when Edelgard nods at her. “What is it you wish to discuss, Lord Lonato?”

The man eyes Manuela hesitantly, but she plants her hands on her hips and stands firm. “Forgive me if I don’t trust you a moment with her alone, given what she endured in your castle after your treachery,” she says coldly. Lonato flinches at her tone, but inclines his head to her in deference without a word, and returns his attention to Edelgard.

“I — I do not know where to begin,” he admits, looking lost. Edelgard simply stares at him coolly; even dressed as she is in plain, threadbare cotton and confined to a bed, she suddenly commands the room so utterly that Manuela almost starts to fidget in discomfort. Lonato must feel much the same, since he averts the Imperial Princess’ piercing gaze and looks at the ground when he speaks again. “My children tell me you saved them from — from a fate they refuse to even speak of to me.”

“Hm,” hums Edelgard. “I did. You sound surprised.”

“I allied with those who intended to harm you,” says Lonato, raising his head in disbelief. “I lured you and your friends in, under false pretense, and nearly caused your deaths. I acted without regard for the harm I undoubtedly caused to relations between the Kingdom and the Empire—”

“I am aware of all of this,” cuts Edelgard. “What is your point, Lord Lonato?”

“Lady Edelgard, I—”

“Do you wish,” she continues, cutting across him without needing to raise her voice even slightly, “for absolution? For forgiveness? For a snap of my fingers upon which the Empire would forget your transgressions against her heir?”

He stares at her mutely for a long moment, before managing to shake his head rigidly.

“Good,” declares Edelgard, her soft voice resonating in the small space of the tent. “The ones who tried to hold me hostage are dead, slain to the man, and their leader is now a mere memory that will be worn away by time... but it is a memory the Empire will not forget. The Empire will not forgive. And the day will come when the Empire will call her debts due... but your duty is not to the Empire, now. Do I need to remind you of who your duty is to, Lord Lonato?”

He shakes his head again. “My people... and my children,” he rasps.

“Your children,” agrees Edelgard coldly. “I did not save them for who they are to you or to anyone else. I saved them for _them_. The Empire will not forgive you, Lord Lonato. But if your children do,” her expression softens the slightest touch, before her steel mask slips back on, “I will consider following suit.”

“I will atone,” he swears, sweat beading on his forehead as he dips his head to her. “I would have with or without you asking, Lady Edelgard. And I — as a token of my sincerity, I will reveal to you everything I know about the ones who assailed you.”

She stares at his bowed head a moment, before her gaze flicks over to Manuela. Manuela mimes zipping her lips shut, and settles back with crossed arms when Edelgard nods at her with a gratified expression.

“Go on,” demands Edelgard. Lonato raises his head, relief shining on his wizened face.

“They — I do not know what those mages had been planning, nor who they truly were. I have heard... only whispers of their kind, truly; some years ago, there were whispers of mysterious wizards performing strange rituals in the lands near House Ordelia. I do not know if those wizards had any relation to the ones that came to me, for only rumours existed of them that faded away without a trace.

“But these mages came to me from the Western Church, promising to be true followers of the Goddess. They said they needed my armies to overthrow the false Prophet of the Goddess, and I — I agreed, to my shame. My townspeople were — they have never seen war, and I was loathe to give it to them, but the Archbishop is the source of many an evil, and I... hesitated. But I could not do it — until _he_ arrived.”

“He?” inquires Edelgard.

“A man calling himself... the Flame Emperor,” whispers Lonato, sounding terrified as he speaks the words. Edelgard’s face does not display the slightest trace of emotion at the title, even as he utters it with such gravity.

A perfectly masked reaction.

“He said he was a herald of the end of our time,” continues Lonato, wiping sweat from his brow. “He — he did not claim to be allied with those mages from the Western Church. I remember, later, reflecting for hours on our exchange, and finding it odd that he had not mentioned them at all. But he did speak against the Central Church at length. He spoke of — of Archbishop Rhea, and of bloody history painted over, and — so many things I did not understand, and even now most of them escape my grasp.

“But his manner was what convinced me to try to do my part, in the end,” says Lonato, his fearful expression gaining an oddly wistful edge. “I found myself wanting to believe in him. He displayed no magic and no strength, and spoke of no armies waiting to serve him — nothing, except for a single flash of a Crest I have only heard tales of before. He said it had been carved into him with blood spilled ten times over, and that he would use it to remake the world.”

“What Crest was this?” questions Edelgard, her expression still perfectly neutral.

“The Crest of Flames,” breathes Lonato, shuddering. “I had no choice but to put faith utterly in his words, after I saw it. The... my telling cannot do it justice,” he says, fervid. “It truly had to be seen to be believed.”

“Indeed,” says Edelgard. Lonato’s impassioned gaze turns slowly into one of dismay, as Edelgard continues to look at him without the slightest trace of emotion on her face beyond an elegantly raised pale brow.

“You — you do not believe me,” murmurs Lonato, shocked.

“Forgive me,” says Edelgard without an ounce of regret in her tone, “but such a thing does sound a bit... far-fetched. Garreg Mach holds such a variety of magical literature, but even to my untrained eye, it is hardly the most complete collection of magic in Fódlan. Who is to say what manner of illusion a group of mysterious mages with knowledge beyond even that of the Monastery would be able to weave?”

“It was no illusion!” cries Lonato. “I assure you—”

“Lord Lonato,” interrupts Edelgard firmly. He stops, and stares at her.

“I appreciate your honesty,” continues Edelgard. “But when forces like that are involved, things are sometimes... not... as they seem...”

“Lady Edelgard?” he questions hesitantly when she trails off, staring down at the sheet covering her. Edelgard does not respond for a long moment, before her gaze suddenly snaps back to his.

“Forgive me,” she repeats. “I find that I am suddenly quite exhausted from my ordeal, and need to rest.”

“But—” he starts to protest, before Manuela clears her throat loudly. He turns back to her, seeming surprised at her presence.

“Out,” orders Manuela imperiously. He gawks at her before turning back to Edelgard, who simply blinks back at him. He swivels his stare between the two women before he relents with a resigned sigh and a deep bow in Edelgard’s direction. “I wish you good health,” he says to her, sounding deeply sincere.

“Thank you,” replies Edelgard primly, and he rises and exits the tent without another glance at Manuela.

Silence rings in the tent, before Manuela sighs again. It seems the longer she spends without a delicious bottle of fine liquor holding her afloat, the more frequent her sighing becomes.

At least she can still make them sound melodic.

“What an interesting conversation,” remarks Manuela, as Edelgard hums tiredly in agreement, drops the sheets from around her shoulders, and sinks back into her bed again. She really does seem exhausted, even though Manuela is sure it had initially been a half-hearted excuse on her part at best.

“You make quite the Emperor, Edelgard,” continues Manuela, watching her charge carefully.

A twitch of Edelgard’s eye confirms her suppositions, and a number of pieces fall into place.

“I am not yet Emperor, Professor,” disagrees Edelgard quietly, bringing a hand to her eyes and massaging them wearily. “But regardless, I’m happy to know you think so.”

Manuela smiles down at Edelgard, though it comes out tighter than she intends because she clearly remembers tending to Edelgard’s wounds on a number of occasions, her most recent misadventure included — and every time, without fail, she has had to bite back a gasp of dismay at the horrifying amount of surgically precise scar tissue present _everywhere_ on Edelgard’s body.

_Carved into him... hmmm._

But Manuela lets go of her train of thought; it may be a coincidence, or it may not — but she is unlikely to find out the truth, here and now, without severely abusing her student’s trust. Even so, she cannot help but to say lightly, “It seems you might have competition with this Flame Emperor character... or not, perhaps.”

The bed creaks slightly as Edelgard stiffens, and pushes the fingers around her eyes apart to stare through them at Manuela in alarm. Manuela holds her gaze in suspense for a few moments, but her student’s eyes only reflect a mounting wariness and no inclination to elaborate on her deception, so she lets it go with a chuckle and pats Edelgard’s shoulder lightly.

Edelgard eyes Manuela with such a vast array of vulnerable emotion that she almost staggers from the sheer force of it. “I won’t pry, Edelgard,” reassures Manuela quickly. “But you’re playing quite the dangerous game from the sounds of it... and I’ve played a few of those back in my heyday, so I would know. But,” her voice turns nostalgic, “I honestly can’t say I wouldn’t do them all over again — if I could only change one thing.”

Edelgard’s eyes silently invite her to continue.

“Dangerous games are a lot more fun when you’re not playing them alone,” says Manuela with a gentle smile. “Someone to share the burden with may be hard to find, true — just look at me,” she quips with a snort, “but a lonely struggle is so much harder than it needs to be.”

“I have Hubert,” mumbles Edelgard.

“That’s not what I’m saying, dear, and you know it,” retorts Manuela. Edelgard sighs and nods, removing her hand from her face and snaking it back under the sheets to her side again.

“If I ask you to help,” says Edelgard quietly. “Will you?”

Manuela shrugs, smiling. “You’ll have to ask to find out,” she replies. “Will you?”

“I — I’ll try,” whispers Edelgard, averting her gaze.

“It would only be right if I promised the same,” says Manuela, winking. She laughs at Edelgard’s bemusement before patting her on the shoulder one last time, as she turns to leave.

“Professor,” calls Edelgard, just as she is about to lift up the flap to exit the tent. She turns and raises an eyebrow at Edelgard, who looks unusually nervous.

“Thank you,” says Edelgard softly. She opens her mouth to say something else, but apparently thinks better of it and gazes instead at Manuela with a look full of undecipherable emotion.

Manuela is hardly very well-versed in the art of reading Edelgard von Hresvelg, but she is still — to her regret — rather practiced at recognising hurt. She smiles softly at her student and says simply, “You’re welcome, Edelgard.” She pauses a moment, and tentatively decides to add, “You are beloved greatly by your entire house, you know. And even outside of it, I would wager.” Edelgard’s eyes widen in surprise, and Manuela continues with a snort. “Hubert was certainly distraught when you were captured — but he was hardly the only one. Just remember that if I’m too scary to confide in,” she chuckles when Edelgard blinks at her joke, “you’ve got a lot of others you can reach your hand out to. On an unrelated note... green is a wonderfully welcoming shade, don’t you think?”

“Wonderfully,” echoes Edelgard in a mumble, sounding unusually troubled even by her standards. “I’ll think about it, Professor.”

Manuela nods at her, and walks out of the tent, closing the flap behind her. _The girl has a good head on her shoulders, but far too many secrets weighing them down_ , she thinks as she walks along the camp aimlessly, _and she can be a tad more stubborn than she likes to admit..._ Manuela stops, and snorts. _That Sothis will certainly set her straight, though... if she lets her._

She frowns when her thoughts are interrupted by a commotion in the middle of their battle camp, and walks towards it cautiously. It seems to be an explosion of chatter centred on a wyvern that has landed in their camp’s midst, whose rider is surrounded by occupants of the camp so she cannot see them. Manuela walks towards the gaggle surrounding the rider, and spots Jeralt’s tall form dismounting the wyvern and a duo of mercenaries rushing to his side — and blinks in stupefaction when she sees the wyvern rider that becomes visible when Jeralt’s approaching mercenaries part the crowd enough for her to be able to see through it. The wyvern rider that sports a very familiar shock of green hair — green hair she has never seen venture away from Garreg Mach Monastery in all the time she has been teaching there. He turns to draw a sheathed lance from a belt tied to his mount’s back, but pauses momentarily when his gaze flicks upward and catches her staring at him with raised brows.

“Hello, Professor Manuela,” greets Seteth grimly when she has reached him, holding aloft the weapon carved with sigils of glowing power.

* * *

Lysithea watches as her mist of Miasma saps the life from yet another group of rebels. It starts slowly: they make light of the purple fog that creeps around their knees, and do not pay much heed as it clings to them more insistently than real mist might. It seeps through their armour, and through that into their skin. _Then it starts to itch and burn_ , the book Lysithea had learned the spell from had said. _The burning travels to the heart, which begins to beat so fast it collapses from the strain._

She watches morbidly as the rebels scratch and clutch uselessly at their chests, and wishes she could have used a more merciful way to end their lives as they slowly collapse with choked screams onto the forested ground. When the last rebel has succumbed, she ducks back behind the large rock that shelters her from view and issues a regretful sigh.

“Idiot,” she berates herself quietly, staring mournfully at the large, hollowed out tree opposite her hiding place. “Why’d you have to go get separated from that nice mercenary lady who even carried you around, all for the sake of investigating some creepy woods... might not even have had to kill all these deluded rebels then. _Idiot_.”

She grumbles to herself for a few seconds longer, then decides she has run out of time to make herself feel better, and chances another peek above the edge of her rock.

A cursory scan of the environment reveals a litany of corpses scattered about within her death-dealing purple mist, and no signs of movement elsewhere — no sound, either, save for the gush of a nearby river. The forest seems to continue infinitely behind the dead rebels, but not even a whisper of green pops up in the endless rust-hued stretch. The trees in this place are strangely tall, too, for all that they seem to be comprised almost solely of deadwood that hasn’t quite realised it has perished. Stranger, still, that the deeper Lysithea heads into this forest, the duller brown the trees become. It is as if they had once formed part of a thriving forest, but have since been stripped bare by some force radiating from its core; left desiccated and wan.

Colours washed away by death — a memory of white masks and black robes and whitening hair and screaming children flashes past Lysithea’s eyes of its own volition. She closes her eyes, slams her hands over her ears, and curls in on herself until the wails of pain in her ears fade to a manageable volume.

She just had to have one of these flashbacks _today_? _Ugh, talk about bad luck,_ she thinks with a heated glare at the ground.

A second glance behind her hiding place reveals no new victims caught in her makeshift trap during however much time she wasted having her useless episode, so she focuses her will and lets the deadly mist disperse back into nothingness. The forest in the background appears no less lifeless than it had before, so she hedges her bets and decides to head out of it, facing the risen morning sun — and stops when she realises her path to freedom lies past field of demise she has reaped. She is sure she would have made a much more imposing figure if she hadn’t decided to keep her nose plugged as tightly as she can manage while she wades through the stench of rot — but as it is, she considers it enough that she looks only moderately terrifying; a speck of lonely movement in a vast sea of stillness.

 _Somehow,_ considers Lysithea wryly, _I don’t think this is what Hilda had in mind when she said I needed to develop my charms._

Her crossing of the dead sea completed, she slinks through the forest towards what she dearly hopes is the east. She remembers roughly where the Knights were keeping their camp, and if her estimation of her heading is correct, then she will be able to abandon her utterly foolish idea of investigating the source of the foul beasts that have been driving relentless assaults against their ranks. _And to think this whole thing was meant to be a simple rescue mission..._

Her heart sings when the trees begin to turn a livelier colour and sunlight starts to stream in more voluminously through the steadily thinning canopy, and she almost jumps for joy when she spots a patch of grass growing. Exiting this accursed forest seems like a more manageable prospect by the minute, and Lysithea cannot wait until—

—until she realises that the sound of the river that has been growing steadily louder in her ears places the river firmly in her way.

_Crap._

Lysithea trudges to the riverbank and does not fight down a gulp of trepidation when she sees how deep the rushing water is. The foamy blue-white torrent would come at least halfway up to her waist if she dove in, and its width looks far more frightening up close, too...

So frightening, in fact, that she turns to eye the trees behind her and wonders if she can use them to construct a makeshift bridge. But something about the river’s presence must have driven away whatever magic sapped the trees of life deeper inside the forest — these trees are a healthy greenish-brown instead, making it highly improbable that she would ever be able to cut one down and drag one of them into place with her regretful inability to do any physical labour.

“Nothing for it, I suppose,” she mutters out loud in an attempt to convince herself, and gingerly sticks a foot in — only to get almost instantly tripped up by the sheer force of the water that slams into her leg.

She cries out involuntarily as she lands painfully on her side, thankfully not in the water — but the stony riverbank has long been eroded into almost velvety smoothness, and her attempt to stand back up is foiled almost instantly when she slips and tumbles down completely into the river. Something snags on her foot just as she is beginning to truly panic and her flail almost flips her face-down into the water, but she manages to painfully slam a palm into the stone beside her to hold herself steady. She uses the opportunity to grab the grassy top of the riverbank with both hands, and tries to lift herself up again — to no avail, because her arms shake like toothpicks trying to support her own weight.

“I refuse to die here,” hisses Lysithea at the river clearly trying its hardest to murder her, and decides to wade forward through it instead. The bank on the opposite side is far shallower, after all, and if she takes... perhaps ten Raphael-sized steps, she can make it in one piece to the much sparser-looking woods on the other side. One step, and she doesn’t quite manage to emulate Raphael’s stride but she imagines that someone as tall as, say, Marianne, wouldn’t be too disappointed at the length — two steps, and she has to grit her teeth at the sheer effort it takes to remain upright against the force levied against her lower half, three steps—

—and her boot snags on another rock, and the bare amount she flinches is enough to make her lose her balance utterly and faceplant into the water.

It rushes into her eyes and ears and muffles her senses almost instantly, but her ill-considered gasp of despair as she falls in makes her brain dismiss all but its most base instincts as water rushes down her throat and she chokes on it. Her traitorous body tries to cough it out, but this only widens her airway — _no no no no you FOOL stop trying to BREATHE — oh how I wish I could have had one last slice of cake—_

—before something snags around the belt of her skirt and fishes her out of the jaws of death.

Lysithea alternately gulps down massive lungfuls of air and coughs out rivulets of water as she flails in the air, and then whatever caught her drops her unceremoniously onto the ground on the side of the river she had failed to cross over to. The impact of the cool ground shakes what feels like a bucketful of water from her chest, and she engages in the horribly unsatisfying pastime of attempting to cough her lungs out while her clothes drip copious amounts of water onto the ground.

A wyvern lands close by while she wrestles with her need to breathe, and she hears someone dismount with a muted _thunk_ before she sees them walk over to her from the corner of her thankfully bright-again vision. She looks up to see a mop of ocean-hued hair framing a pair of ocean-hued eyes — eyes that eye her with some mixture of emotion she feels entirely unqualified to quantify.

“I think you might be the biggest fish I’ve ever caught,” muses Byleth, sticking the point of her spear into the ground beside her. Lysithea directs part of her coughing fit at Byleth in what she hopes conveys gratitude, annoyance, and confusion simultaneously.

Byleth seems to understand, because she crouches and thumps Lysithea’s back hard enough to jostle the remnants of fluid from her system, and she croaks out a weak, “Thanks,” as Byleth crinkles her eyes in a slight smile, seeming oddly... worn out.

Before Lysithea can wonder about it, another muffled _thunk_ announces the other rider’s presence, and she blinks up at where the wyvern has landed to meet Petra’s purple gaze. She wears both a look of concern, and odd, mercenary-like leathers that Lysithea has never seen on a student before. They fit her surprisingly well, and Lysithea blinks when she spots an intricate-looking purple marking on the Petra’s exposed arm. _It matches the one around her eye quite well..._ Lysithea wonders if she has any other markings hidden by the Academy’s uniform—

—and coughs to hide her blush when she realises how badly her thought could have been misinterpreted if she had voiced it.

“Are you alright, Lysithea? Feelings of water in lungs are never being pleasant,” says Petra anxiously, crouching and peering at her, entirely unaware of her internal monologue.

“Fine,” rasps Lysithea, twisting her hair into a bundle and wringing it out with hands shaky from exhaustion. “How — how did you both find me?”

“Nab told us you went missing around the forest,” replies Byleth, frowning. “So we started searching along the river — just in case.”

“Our search was actually for Hubert and Sothis,” reveals Petra, as Lysithea turns to wring her waterlogged skirt next, “but I am being very grateful we found Nab — and you — first.”

“Well... thanks,” mumbles Lysithea gruffly, averting her eyes at the raw sincerity that just oozes from Petra’s every word.

“You are welcome,” replies Petra serenely. Lysithea looks back to catch her smiling softly, and turns to Byleth, who has an eyebrow raised as if she’s questioning something.

“Can you walk, Lysithea?” questions Byleth.

“I — I doubt I can even stand, if I’m honest,” admits Lysithea, flushing. The two each offer her a hand and lift her up effortlessly — but her knees seem to have other ideas, and she almost collapses onto the ground again before Petra, lightning-fast, sticks an arm underneath Lysithea’s to steady her.

“I am catching you,” says Petra reassuringly.

“You caught me,” corrects Lysithea, and then reddens when she realises how rude she sounds. “Um, I mean — thanks again.”

“Caught...” mumbles Petra, repeating the phrase to herself. Then her gaze firms. “You are not needing to thank me more than once,” she admonishes gently, frowning as she walks around to wrap her arm around Lysithea’s shoulder to stabilise her.

“Petra,” says Byleth, her grave tone lacking most of the comedy it usually carries. “I think you should take her back to the camp.”

“I’m fine—” Lysithea starts to protest even as Petra nods solemnly, and then remembers she would likely not be able to move for at least an hour if Petra removed her supporting arm from beneath her shoulders, “—with that. Wait, no — what about you?”

“I’ll walk,” deadpans Byleth. “But not to the camp. I need to find Sothis.”

“Is she in trouble?” questions Lysithea nervously. The last she’d heard, the green-haired woman had been trying to secure the people of Gaspard against the rebels that had turned on their former compatriots — Lysithea can’t really imagine what a nightmare such a situation would be to manage.

“Undoubtedly,” replies Byleth with a disdainful sniff. “She gets herself into trouble _far_ too regularly when I’m not around to tone down her very harebrained schemes. And with the way Hubert has been acting since Edelgard was kidnapped...”

“The brain of a hare... what is it meaning?” wonders Petra curiously.

“Very poorly thought through, or perhaps rushed,” answers Lysithea, twisting her neck awkwardly to look more directly at Petra’s face — which is rather uncomfortably close, now that she thinks about it.

“Fódlan expressions are so very strange,” mutters Petra with a frown, not seeming to notice their lack of distance. Lysithea wonders how she doesn’t, especially since it feels so warm...

“How would you say it in Brigid’s language? ” asks Lysithea curiously, pushing aside her discomfort using her years of practice.

“I think... the word that is being used for such a thing is...” replies Petra, saying a strange word.

Lysithea blinks, mouthing it silently.

“Huh,” muses Byleth. “It sounds... catchy.”

“No kidding,” agrees Lysithea, repeating it to herself.

“Um,” says Petra, sounding nervous. “In Brigid, it is not being a very... nice word. I would be grateful if you did not say it in loudness much.”

“Oh, sorry,” apologises Lysithea, and Byleth follows suit with a sheepish smile.

“You are not needing to apologise,” disagrees Petra. “The fault is mine. I had not been telling you beforehand.”

“Well, polite words or otherwise,” says Byleth, picking up her spear, “I have a twin to rescue. Break a leg!”

Lysithea watches as Byleth waves at them and turns to leap feet-first into the river — and her jaw drops in astonishment when Byleth bounces off the water’s tremulous surface into another jump and lands neatly on the other side.

“I need to learn to do that,” mutters Lysithea enviously as she eyes her own drenched uniform, watching Byleth fade into the dense woods on the other side of the river.

“In Brigid, there are being fishers who learn to do such magic in the sea when they are young,” recalls Petra, helping Lysithea onto the wyvern. “When they are old enough, and good enough at magic, the shamans of their land are teaching them to do it in rivers, too.”

“Do you know how to?” asks Lysithea curiously, as Petra climbs onto the wyvern and pulls them gently into the late morning sky.

“I do not,” answers Petra, sounding wistful. She says something else, too, but the rush of wind garbles her words and renders them unintelligible to Lysithea. Lysithea considers asking her to repeat herself, but her clothes aren’t yet fully dry and the wind makes them feel icy as they cling to her skin, so she decides to save her energy to shiver against the bitter cold instead.

Floating amidst the scant clouds that seem to be slowly growing in volume and launching a bid to take over the sun, Lysithea can see the a much bigger expanse of the river that almost claimed her life, as it runs through the heart of the forest below. It twists into a deep ravine behind a pair of hills as it leaves the forest, which leads on to the western holds of Gaspard and the lands further to the north, hidden from view of even the sky. Her supposition about the trees growing deader as the forest deepened seems to have been correct, too — she cannot make out much of the forest from the distance the wyvern is quickly gaining and due to the way she has to squint against the wind batting at her eyelashes, but a curious darkness seems to shroud the dead trees the further north into the forest she looks. It makes her deeply uncomfortable, and she hopes Byleth is very—

—Petra swerves the wyvern down sharply as they near a hill so they cannot be seen from the other side of it, and Lysithea slides forward on the saddle into Petra’s back. She flushes inadvertently at the flex of muscle that presses against her front, and her heart hammers when Petra suddenly turns her head back to her in concern.

“You are cold!” the girl exclaims, her thick purple braid whipping about behind her in the air.

“I-it’s f-f-fine,” stammers Lysithea, and curses the disappointingly thin Academy uniforms for making the wind feel so arctic. Then again, heavier cloth would have been even harder to dry...

Petra doesn’t seem to believe her, and her frown only grows more pronounced. “Should we be going slower?” she asks. “The wind will be hitting you with less strength, then.”

“N-no, it’s r-really okay! The faster we go, the s-sooner I can be out of your hair,” insists Lysithea, trying her hardest to not let the cold make her stutter through every word. “B-besides,” she adds in an attempt when Petra blinks at her in confusion, “you’re plenty warm.”

_Wait, why did I just say that?!_

“Out of my hair?” wonders Petra, giving her braid an experimental tug as Lysithea’s face flames at her gaffe. “Another strange expression... I am thinking that I am not understanding. But if you are to benefit from my body’s warmth, you are needing to be moving closer to me.”

Lysithea gapes at her. “Do not worry,” adds Petra kindly, mistaking Lysithea’s shock for worry. “I am used to being hit with the sea’s water and its winds all at once. You will not be making me uncomfortable.”

“I-if you say so,” says Lysithea, knowing she might have stuttered here even if she hadn’t been freezing cold. She hesitantly inches forward into Petra’s back again, and almost sighs out loud when she feels the brilliant heat that emanates from it... _why was I embarrassed by this again? This is simply too wonderful..._

Lysithea is halfway to closing her eyes in contentment when she spots an odd pair of darkly-clad figures in the distance, near an uncobbled path that seems to join up with the mountain pass that goes through the Oghma. She squints at them suspiciously — none of the uniforms of the Officer’s Academy are that dark, and something about the way the shapes are moving makes them look both shifty, and... oddly familiar...

 _Black robes_ , she realises with a start, jerkily shaking herself awake. One of the figures turns its head to the other, and the sight of a white mask on its face as it turns sends a shudder of memory racing down Lysithea’s spine.

“Petra,” she says, swallowing. “Do you see those people down there?”

“I have been seeing them since many minutes ago,” replies Petra in a grim tone that confirms Lysithea’s suspicions. “Edelgard... when I was carrying her to safety, she was speaking of fighting mages like them in the castle. From her telling, I am thinking they are too dangerous for—”

“Nonsense,” hisses Lysithea, incensed. “I am not made of gla— I mean, I can handle myself just fine. A little cold isn’t going to stop me... and if they are who I think they are, they have a lot to answer for.”

Petra does not reply for a moment, but she does slow her wyvern slightly. Lysithea considers angrily assuring the other girl that she does _not_ need to be coddled like some child—

—and nearly squeaks when Petra grabs her arms and wraps them around her waist.

“Hold steady,” warns Petra, and accelerates into a dive.

The wind beats furiously at Lysithea’s face, and her lashes feel like they might rip off her eyelids as Petra drives her wyvern towards the ground at relentless speeds. But though her body still feels somewhat weak, her mind has never been stronger; the words of a binding incantation flow past the patchwork of her thoughts easily, and she releases one arm from Petra’s waist to prepare a stream of magic to silence her enemy. The riders gain rapidly on the two robed figures, and for an instant Lysithea fears that the beat of wings will give them away — before she realises that the wyvern underneath her is only smoothly gliding, and a faint rush of air is the only thing that could possibly hint at their presence.

But Petra seems to have other plans, and continues leaning forward; their targets are dangerously close now. Fifty paces, then thirty, then fifteen; one of the figures turns around—

—and the wyvern slams its legs into the unsuspecting mage’s chest.

Their head jerks at the impact, and then bounces off the ground as the mage is dragged along by the momentum of the wyvern and its two riders. Lysithea twists around in the saddle to release her Silencing spell at the other mage, who tries to dodge but is clipped solidly in the side with it. She hops out of her seat before the wyvern has even come to a stop, and it is surely a testament to her will that her legs only buckle slightly when she lands. She stalks towards the masked mage, slamming a Bind into their chest.

“Remember that?” hisses Lysithea at the figure. “One of you taught me that one — by repeatedly _using it on me_.”

It does not answer, and she stomps forward before casting a cutting Wind at the figure’s legs. That elicits a cry and a sharp _crack_ , and the mage falls backward onto the ground as Lysithea reaches down with trembling hands and rips their mask off.

An entirely unremarkable man’s face stares up at her emotionlessly. Entirely unremarkable, that is, save for the strange, black-inked pattern that surrounds both of the figure’s eyes.

“Unhand me, vermin,” demands the man, not the slightest trace of inflection in his voice. “I have matters to attend to.”

She stares at him incredulously. “You—” she starts to say, but cuts herself off with a hysterical laugh. “You have matters to attend to? Your most pressing matter is explaining exactly what you were trying to do here!”

“I do not answer to you,” replies the mage calmly. Lysithea curses at him, and then looks back to see if the one trampled underneath the wyvern had been more cooperative. But she only sees Petra shaking her head silently back at her as she pulls a sword from a scabbard on her wyvern’s belt, and Lysithea realises that the impact of their landing had likely killed the other mage instantly.

She curses again, and turns to look back down at the mage next to her.

“Alright, fine,” hisses Lysithea, switching tacks. “Why were your allies trying to give two Crests to children?”

The mage blinks and frowns at her sudden shift of questioning, and Lysithea sneers victoriously at having elicited a reaction. Petra shifts slightly behind her, but Lysithea knows, despite only having spoken to her properly just today, that the strangely sincere girl would not utter a word of whatever secrets Lysithea did not want her to spill.

“How do you know about that?” demands the mage.

“I ask the questions,” replies Lysithea stormily. “What were you hoping to achieve?”

“A child with two Crests,” says the mage, rasping laughter that sounds incredibly forced. Lysithea’s blood boils, but she lets him continue, “Your hair must mean we succeeded, but you are not the weapon... ah. The failed experiment,” he says, and laughs again.

Lysithea slams the heel of her boot into his nose, and allows herself to feel the rush of satisfaction when she hears his nose _crack_.

“I won’t ask nicely again,” she promises when he sits up again.

“Filthy beast,” he sneers at her. “We were hoping to advance our knowledge, of course. Experiments are all you animals can be good for.”

“Experiments...” she breathes, stunned. “You — you tortured my brothers to death. You destroyed my family — you stole _my entire life_ — for experiments.”

“What can be more worthwhile for the life of lowly vermin?” asks the mage rhetorically.

Every thought in Lysithea’s mind gives way to the tide of absolute _fury_ that rushes through her as she slams the heel of her boot into the mage’s temple, and she steps around to stomp on his wounded legs for good measure. He grunts in pain, rolling around, but the sound does not even register in her mind as her hand glows again with Wind that she lets fly into the mage’s chest.

“Lysithea—” calls Petra, but Lysithea does not hear her through the fog of rage in her head and the scream of the man on the ground. Stopping is not a concept she can envision now, so close to an answer after _so long_ — so she gathers a darker sliver of magic into her hand, and screams at her enemy, “Experiments?! I’ll give you an experiment! Tell me—”

She crouches and shoves her fingers into the gash on the mage’s chest as he yells in agony—

“How _this_ compares,” she twists her fingers into the wound as he tries to slither away from her to hold him firm, and though something in her reels at the sound of his redoubled scream echoing in her mind, she is too lost in her wrath to care—

“ _To what you did to me!_ ” she roars, and releases a cast of Luna straight into his flesh.

His cry of excruciating agony is so loud that her ears ring with it, but she does not let go. She remembers nothing of her siblings but their screams, either, and now that she is strong enough to exact her vengeance, this mage will—

“Lysithea!” shouts Petra, and tears her away from the man who has extinguished his throat with his cries. She struggles uselessly against the girl’s impossibly strong grip, yelling, “Let me _go!_ ” but Petra holds firm and says harshly, “Enough,” before she slits the mage’s throat in a single fell stroke of her blade.

Lysithea pants as Petra releases her, collapsing onto the ground as the anger still surges through her. _How dare he,_ she thinks. _How..._ and pauses when she sees her hand — slathered in blood.

Beat by beat, the rage drains away... and is replaced by dawning horror. The scream of the dead mage rings in her ear, and she remembers her brothers screaming, and they all ring and ring and ring until she can no longer tell which is which—

—she doubles over, slams her palms into the ground beneath her, and empties her stomach.

Her eyes cloud over in darkness as something wraps around her still slightly damp hair and holds it up away from her neck, and she dry-heaves a few more times for good measure. _What have I done? Oh Goddess, why did I — how could I —_

Lysithea stares at the ground and at the expunged contents of her own stomach, and neither offer her any answers.

“Lysithea,” murmurs Petra, crouching next to her. Lysithea is altogether surprised that Petra’s voice manages to cut through the screams that still seem to ring in her ears, and raises her head to look at her. She realises it is Petra’s hand that kindly holds her hair for her... and is suddenly so consumed by her shame that she cannot look the girl in the eye.

If Petra hadn’t stopped her, would she have... kept going?

“I’m—” she starts to say, but Petra cuts her off.

“If you are going to be apologising to me,” she says, her gently firm tone muting the ringing in Lysithea’s ears to a bare murmur, “please do not. I am not the one you were wronging — he is dead now.”

“I—” starts Lysithea again, and a fresh wave of guilt crashes into her. She shuts her eyes as she rocks back to sit on the ground. “I don’t think,” she whispers regretfully, “I would have apologised to him even if I could have.”

“I was not expecting you to,” says Petra, a hint of dryness in her tone as she sets Lysithea’s hair back down — though she does not remove her hand from it.

Lysithea looks at her in surprise, and says incredulously, “What I did there was — it was _monstrous_. Inexcusable. I’m just—” her voice cracks, as she voices the shameful truth that has been gnawing at her insides, “—just as bad as them.”

“I am not being so sure about that,” retorts Petra, frowning. She scoots closer to Lysithea, hand still resting where Lysithea’s hair tumbles down over the small of her back. “If — I am not certain about all that was being done to you, but if you are saying you are as bad as them... are you saying that you would be torturing a — a child’s family? Or doing experimentations on them? Even if they had been doing nothing to you?”

“Of course not,” cries Lysithea, horrified.

“Then I am not seeing how you are as bad,” says Petra, rubbing the small of Lysithea’s back in gentle comfort. Her hand stills for a brief moment before she sighs and reveals in a low tone, “I... I am understanding your anger, a little.”

Lysithea stares at her in shock, and Petra smiles ruefully at her. “It is the truth. Four years ago... when the Empire defeated Brigid, they slew my father. I was not meant to be in that battle, but I had not been wanting to let him go alone. I had been in hiding, but they were setting an ambush, and...” she stops, frowning. “Give me forgiveness. It is not easy to talk about, even now — but the death they gave him was not a merciful one. I was trying to fight his killer alone, afterwards — but I had only seen eleven winters in my life by then, so I did not get the victory. But if I had, I would have...” she trails off meaningfully, a dark promise in her tone. “My grandfather was giving me wisdom, after that, even as the Empire made Brigid theirs. My anger has faded much since then — I am not hating the Empire now, even if I will never be forgetting their actions.”

Lysithea swallows, staring at Petra. “What — what wisdom did he give you?”

“He was telling me to always give to my enemies what I am always wishing they had given to my father,” replies Petra. “There is a... a cycle, of revenge, he said. It is my choice to break it, or keep it.”

“Break the cycle,” mumbles Lysithea, staring at the ground. “I — I haven’t told anyone at the Academy this. But what they did to me to give me two Crests... I don’t think I will live to see my twenty-fifth birthday, Petra. My body will collapse under the strain long before then. The most I have ever hoped for is — is to leave my parents with enough to let them live their lives in peace.”

Petra stares at her in horror. “I... I am not knowing what to say,” she whispers. “I had been wondering when you said that they stole... but no. No.”

“What? No?” says Lysithea, blinking at her abruptly firm gaze. Petra moves her hand from Lysithea’s back to her shoulder, and squeezes tightly.

“I am not knowing much about Crests,” admits Petra. “The Goddess of Fódlan did not give them to the people of Brigid. But I have been seeing you work at the Monastery. You are... I was always wondering what had been driving your spirit, because I was always seeing you training to become better. And seeing you was always making me feel closer to my own dream of restoring Brigid, and I would always be feeling like I could work even harder to be more like you, even if I did not have knowing of anything about you. But now that I do... we will be finding a way to give you back your lost years, Lysithea. With our spirits, working together — I am thinking there is nothing that can stand in our way, not even two Crests.”

“Wow,” breathes Lysithea, feeling moisture prick at her eyes. She absently rubs at them while still staring Petra’s purple irises, unable to look away. Darkened with emotion as they are, they look so similar to her own... “When you say it like that, I... I almost want to believe it.”

“It is being a promise, Lysithea,” vows Petra, reaching to tightly clasp Lysithea’s hand in hers.

“A promise,” whispers Lysithea back, and suddenly the cliff that she had always imagined her future to be... feels like it slopes away more gently, now. Perhaps one day she will walk down its edge, instead of being forced to leap from it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> therapist!Manuela returns, and even figures something out about her patient! but Edelgard has nothing to fear because Manuela is bound by doctor-patient confidentiality, even if she has become a hardcore sothisgard shipper
> 
> also doropetra fans please do not riot. there will be much (platonic) fluff between those two in play, even in light of the ship tags on this story
> 
> and yes Lysithea is an angy, angsty, sad fluffball, but she promises to get better! 
> 
> also also I doubt anyone will care (or even notice) but I reused the "[thing], [thing], [thing]" phrase in the first scene here after having used it in chapter 13 already because I could not for the life of me find a better alternative for it - somewhat to my shame, but also it's from one of the best paragraphs Tolkien has ever put to paper and reusing it means i can gush about it here so it's actually okay


	17. Blue Skies and a Battle (Thunder)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Battle rages and scars, and a silent web is woven...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 100k words!!!! Achieved by one (point five) chapter! I feel... special 😭
> 
>  ~~admission: I fucked up with the way I split these two chapters, because the first scene of this chapter (everything before the double linebreak) was meant to be in the last chapter (for thematic reasons), but AO3 doesn't issue subscriber notifs for edits and I didn't wanna delete an already posted chapter so I stuck it in here. But I'll fix it and add a note about it here when I upload the next chapter, don't worry~~
> 
> **Update (2020-Oct-12)** : Moved the Lysithea POV scene from the beginning of this chapter to the end of the previous chapter (Chapter 16). If you haven’t read that scene in that chapter before, I guess... go... do it?
> 
> cw: graphic violence and gore

Byleth chases a shadow through the dead forest.

It has left its mark everywhere — this does not seem to be a shadow that cares to pay much heed to the fallen boughs that litter the forest floor, because it leaves an almost clumsy trail through them. She steps lightly through the broken branches, and every once in a while comes across a dead rebel soldier — or, more strangely, dead people in peculiar black robes and white masks, some with the masks lying beside them and odd markings around their eyes. Their corpses are scattered all across the path she follows into the ever-increasing silence of these strange woods; some hang off trees dripping blood onto the ground with hideous gashes carved into them, some lay slumped over in puddles of their own blood with their limbs torn apart and scattered in piles around them, and some are even impaled onto bloodstained trees with their own bloody weapons.

 _There is,_ considers Byleth, _a lot of blood here._

It becomes something of a comical routine after the first fifteen or so bodies — she either stands on her tiptoes to be able to reach the corpse or crouches down to examine it, marks the way they were murdered and which direction their assailant had attacked from and likely gone in, and then follows suit. It has not seemed to steer her wrong yet, because the trail under her feet remains scattered with broken tree branches and she keeps finding corpses—

—until she comes across one of a young woman with her ribcage carved out and heart missing entirely.

_That’s new._

The ground here is more disturbed, too, she realises, as she tries to puzzle out the wound on the young woman’s chest. Mid-twenties, if her estimate is correct. No weapon in sight, if her vision hasn’t failed her. A strange black miasma surrounding the woman’s left arm that smells of... cheese?

Byleth hopes her nose is functioning correctly, and prods carefully at the offending limb with a nearby twig. It crumbles away into dust like a brick of spent charcoal as soon as she does, and she blinks. _What in Fódlan..._

_Snap._

Her ear twitches like a fish startled by a line cast into a still lake, and she whirls around in anticipation of finally completing her hunt. Whatever snapped the twig must have been the shadow she is chasing, and the sound had been distant enough that it may not yet have realised her pursuit.

She considers her options for a half-second; after her laborious preparations for the battle ahead, she has little energy to spare on a tracking spell... but on the other hand, a tracking spell would solve her mystery far quicker than chasing the shadow would. The idea of using her magic as a crutch rankles at some sense of mercenary pride deep inside her, though, so she abandons her investigation of the dead woman on the ground, rises as quietly as she can, and stands in absolute stillness as she starts silently counting up to a minute.

She feels a rare spike of trepidation when she realises the mystery of the forest must have another layer, and she strains her ears to listen while she counts. The forest is absolutely still alongside her — not a single sound of nature is audible, and her steady heartbeat is _uncomfortably_ loud in her ears. Whatever had killed the trees here had clearly also killed everything else... which must mean...

_It will kill the shadow if I do not find it first._

She reaches the count of sixty, and runs as fast as she can in the direction she had heard the twig snap.

The dead trees blur past her as she unsheathes the spear strapped to her back, and she knows she must be making a messy trail of her own, now — perhaps this is why the shadow had been so careless, too. But she cannot know unless she asks it, so she has to find it before—

Before she leaps over a fallen, hollow tree trunk, and lands facing two very much alive figures in dark robes. Behind them is the corpse of a young man with a hole in his chest, and in one of their hands is a glowing, smoothly rounded, and intricately patterned red stone.

“You’re not the shadow,” accuses Byleth.

They stare at her for a long moment from behind unfeeling white masks, before one of them begins to gather an orb of darkness in their hand — far too late for it to be of any use to them. The tiny green arrows that have quietly been coalescing behind them as soon as she had landed, suddenly dart forward into their backs and skewer them both with a mist of fine blood. The glowing round stone tumbles away from a dead hand onto the ground, where its red glow fades.

She picks it up, putting her spear away again. She recognises the odd marking on its surface from Hanneman’s office, and the thing feels far too heavy for its size to be anything but very magical — and thus likely very Crest-related. Byleth frowns; the magic of Crests has never made much sense to her, and she has always carried an undercurrent of frustration within her regarding that because as _every single text she has ever read_ tells her: she will never be able to make much sense of it, since she does not bear a Crest herself.

She glares at the stone. _We’ll see,_ she promises it darkly. But that will come after. For now...

“You can stop hiding now,” calls Byleth to the shadow behind the tree.

* * *

“Well spotted,” drawls Hubert, stepping out from where he has lain hidden for the past hour, making Byleth beam at him — though something about her manner seems strangely subdued. _I wonder if it has to do with where she vanished off to in the morning, before the rescue..._

“Why were you running?” queries the enigmatic woman in question, casually juggling the stone in her hand. Hubert blanches when he realises what it is — surely she should be more careful with such a potentially dangerous — and perhaps useful — artifact. Nevertheless...

“I was not,” replies Hubert, frowning in confusion. “I have been here, stealthily observing these... mages, for a long while now. Whatever gave you that idea?”

“The trail of bodies you left behind,” says Byleth, frowning back at him. “The tracks you made on the floor were so obvious you... you must have been running?”

Hubert feels his brow twitch. “I did not, perhaps to my fortune, grow up a mercenary skilled in the art of navigating forests,” he laments, walking over to her. “But I regret to inform you that I did not create a trail of bodies — and neither did your sister, for that matter. The most likely cause is the despicably powerful magic these mages have been attempting — with that stone you so carelessly toss about. Perhaps I should hold on to—”

“It’s fine,” interrupts Byleth, snaking it into her pouch instantly. _Drat_. “I’ll be good. What were they attempting, and where in the world _is_ my sister?”

“I am... not sure of the true intent of their magic, to my consternation,” admits Hubert, shooting the dead duo on the ground a frustrated look. “All I can tell is that it had some effect on those they tried it on, and using the power of that Crest Stone, they were able to turn people into nearly mindless beasts — except that the effect of the spell would fade, sometimes, and they would be left with nothing but a corpse. Success — not that I’ve observed any from these fools — seemed to not be much kinder to them, either, since these beasts seem... hard to control, at best. The trail of bodies you speak of must have been the doing of their rampages, from what I can gather. And I cannot imagine that this sudden insurgence of these Crest-born beasts is a recent plot, given that these particular mages took an hour to create only a single failure from their spell...”

It still rankles at him that neither he nor Lady Edelgard have managed to figure out much of the secrets of their reluctant-allies-turned-enemies, nor glean much of their vast wealth of knowledge on Crests. Not that they will have much need of the latter, once Lady Edelgard becomes Emperor and begins cleansing the world of the ones who slither and the thrice-accursed Church along with them. But as for Byleth’s second question...

Hubert pinches the bridge of his nose aggravatedly, and says, “I am even less sure of your sister’s intent. She... she climbed onto a tree, and assured me she could remain hidden while investigating the forest if she kept hopping from tree to tree since, according to her, nobody ever looks up.”

“Nobody ever looks up,” intones Byleth in confirmation. “She’s not wrong about that.”

“Is this... usual, for her?” wonders Hubert, vexed. He had been concerned about Lady Edelgard’s safety ever since his liege had taken a most unfortunate interest in the green-haired woman... but she keeps confusing him with behaviour so _strange_ mixed in with her customary aura of heavy danger and gracious charm that he cannot quite find it in himself to remain too wary of her. Especially since she had mounted the successful operation to rescue Lady Edelgard — Hubert has to admit, begrudgingly, that even mere minutes later could have proven disastrous given the state of his Lady’s wound, and he doubts anyone else could have pulled off such detailed organisation of a rescue mission at such short notice.

 _He_ most certainly could not have, and that ignites his ire far more than any of her shenanigans do. The sight of Lady Edelgard in such a state, looking almost as frail as the day she had come crawling out of the Imperial Palace’s dungeons, and knowing again that he is as helpless now as he was then... Hubert swears he will have to do better next time.

“Usual for her? Well... not especially,” replies Byleth slowly, unaware of the turmoil that rages in his thoughts. “It sounds more like the sort of thing I might do, to be honest. Heh. I think she just likes confusing you.”

“As I thought... is this your retribution for my disbelief, Goddess?” he laments in a mumble, briefly passing a hand over his eyes. Byleth’s lips twitch slightly, but she says nothing on the matter. _Curious._

“I don’t suppose you have any hidden tricks we can use to follow her, given that she will leave no trail if she has continued to travel on the treetops?” asks Hubert once he has finished mourning for the scant peace he had once possessed in his life.

“She told you the trick,” shrugs Byleth. “Nobody ever looks up, so... we look up.”

Hubert stares at her. He realises, to his horror, that she is correct... Sothis’ occasionally odd demeanour is, in the end, only a pale imitation of Byleth’s omnipresent outlandishness.

“Then we should begin,” he says, hoping to spare his sanity if he avoids thinking too much on the matter. “She headed in this direction,” he points up at an entirely unremarkable — and utterly dead — tree, “and so did a trio of these mages.”

“If you look carefully,” remarks Byleth, as she leans on her tiptoes to examine the tree Sothis ostensibly climbed, “you can see that her boots make slight scuffs where she leaps over to the next tree. The marks don’t last very long on trees that are alive, but...”

“These trees are not,” finishes Hubert.

“Exactly,” cheers Byleth, beaming as she gathers a tiny pinprick of magic into her hand that shoots out in a dull red haze into the scuffed tree branch. Hubert watches, mesmerised, as it lingers like a tiny fog over the track, then shoots off into the next tree where it illuminates the next mark in the sequence, before fizzling out in a shower of red sparks.

Hubert eyes Byleth in fascination. She had demonstrated a truly prodigious skill for the notoriously difficult illusion arts in the mock battle, and though she refuses to reveal to anyone how she had summoned that very real torrent of rain which was most certainly _not_ just an illusion like she had claimed, her skill with magic is undeniable and utterly unique. Even a sorcerer like Hubert, who trained himself in the Empire amongst its many accomplished magic-users, has never seen anything quite like the way she turns magic into — dare he wax poetic — an art form.

“And I suppose I should teach you,” continues Byleth, “to minimise the awfully obvious trail you’re leaving for any two-bit amateur tracker to follow...”

Hubert frowns as he follows her step-pattern meticulously. His footfalls make almost as little noise as hers, and he only steps on branches that are already broken down by time... but then he is hardly adept at tramping through forests, so he decides to defer to her expertise with a grudging, “If you think it necessary.”

“Wouldn’t it be?” wonders Byleth. “I would think you carry out most of your assassination contracts deep in the woods, no? And the kidnappings and torture are _surely_ easier when nobody can hear their screams...”

“Just what is it you think I do?” asks Hubert slowly, wondering if she has gone mad. “Assassination contracts in the woods? Torture and kidnapping?”

Byleth pauses and turns around with such a look of mystification on her face that Hubert has to blink back at her. “You... don’t?” she asks, lip trembling for some reason he cannot fathom.

“I am,” says Hubert, enunciating every word slowly, “Lady Edelgard’s protector. I stay at her side, day in and day out, so that I can guard her from any and all threats she faces. Where, precisely, do you imagine that I would find the time to be such a textbook example of some _caricature_ of a hatchet-man?”

“Oh,” she breathes, hanging her head so low that her hair shadows her eyes. “You’re right.”

Hubert stares incredulously at her when she sniffles slightly.

“Are you... crying?” he demands. She shakes her head insistently, and turns around to start following the trail again, a hand rubbing at her face. Hubert gazes dubiously at her back. Even Bernadetta only tends to run away screaming from him, at worst... he doesn’t quite know how he should feel about making a fellow student _cry_.

But Lady Edelgard would doubtless throttle him with her bare hands if she ever found out he’d done such a thing, so he clears his throat and chases after her, valiantly managing to say, “You have my apologies if I somehow offended you... although I must admit to being quite perplexed as to how.”

“S’not your fault,” mumbles Byleth, sighing. At least she only sounds vaguely depressed now, so the tenseness in Hubert’s shoulders eases slightly. “I got my hopes up, thinking I’d finally met an _enforcer_ of the Empire. A real, live, murderous enforcer!” she exclaims, turning back to him with impassioned eyes jaded by the world’s cruelty. “But I guess it... just wasn’t meant to be.”

“My apologies,” repeats Hubert stiltedly when he fails to think of anything more meaningful to say, and she turns back to keep walking with a disappointed shake of her head. What else _could_ he say, faced with such a fervid reaction to such a frivolous thing? But perhaps he can find a way to turn this to his advantage yet... “Hm. I may not be an, er, _enforcer_ , but if you swear your allegiance to Lady Edelgard and the Empire, I could in due time... pull some strings, as it were, to grant you such a position.”

Byleth snorts derisively, shooting a brief, incredulous look at Hubert. “Don’t be silly. I wanted to _meet_ an enforcer, not become one,” she scoffs.

Hubert gapes at her sheer temerity.

“And the trick to minimising your trail through a forest like this one,” she adds in an upbeat tone as if the past conversation had never even occurred, “is to slide your feet underneath the branches that cover the ground. You’ll have to snake them back out and over for every step if you do that, true, but as you can see,” she turns to walk backwards for a few paces, demonstrating the action she proposes, “it leaves the branches undisturbed from their regular orientation and doesn’t leave a screaming clue on the ground.”

Hubert jaw slowly closes as he tries to figure out exactly how _insane_ this woman is — then gives it up as a fruitless task, and tries the motion she suggests.

It works... perfectly. The sound of his footfalls remains minimal, yet the trail of scattered branches remains unaltered — now that he knows to pay closer attention to the way his gait had been scattering them in a somewhat uneven way.

“Perhaps I was too quick in my estimation of your talents,” allows Hubert admiringly, wondering how in Fódlan she could switch tacks so devastatingly fast.

“Likewise,” replies Byleth with a smile. Hubert blinks as she turns to follow the trail again, wondering if he has just been insulted. She stops suddenly before he can ask, though, staring at the tree next to her and saying slowly, “This one doesn’t have a mark leading onwards to another tree...”

Hubert frowns at the offending tree. “Could she be nearby, then?” he asks, half-dreading being caught in the company of _both_ twins. His sanity would surely not survive...

“Most likely,” agrees Byleth, and his heart sinks slightly. “She’s pretty good at not leaving tracks on the ground, so we’ll have a much harder time following her now.”

“I doubt that, actually,” says Hubert laconically, pointing at a splintered tree in the distance that is broken into _far_ too many pieces for it to be the work of time.

“Well spotted,” praises Byleth, unsheathing her spear. They creep quietly towards the tree, and Hubert’s spine tingles in anticipation; they will, in all likelihood, happen upon the scene of a bloody battle—

—and indeed they do. The splintered tree is one of many in the area, some of which have broken bodies _smeared_ into them, and the ground has blackened spots and craters that reek of magical warfare. And in the centre of the aftermath of the bloodbath, miraculously untouched by the storm of destruction surrounding it, is a small clearing in which stand two women; one dressed in mercenary leathers with an unforgettable shade of green hair, and the other dressed in deep black robes with an intricate pattern around her eye... and impaled on the mercenary’s sword.

* * *

Sothis listens to the thin rattle of the woman’s last breath and the quiet _plink_ of blood dripping onto hard soil, sees the way her eyes unfocus and glaze over as they stare into the unending void, and feels the weight on her sword intensify as her victim fades from the world.

She sighs, pulls her blade away softly as it makes the barest whisper of a _snick_ , and lays the body gently on the ground.

“Hello, Byleth. Hello, Hubert,” she sighs.

“Hi,” replies Byleth cheerily.

Hubert says nothing, only giving her a questioning look when she turns in their direction.

“It seems your flame has dulled,” he drawls sardonically when she raises her brow back at him. “No urge to bounce around the trees now?”

“No,” she replies shortly. “It just makes me a _tad_ upset when all my enemies insist on literally throwing themselves onto my sword even if I insist I only wish to speak to them, because _apparently,_ dying to the Fell—” she stops, takes in a deep breath, and says instead, “You know what, I’m just rambling. My flame is as bright as ever! Tree-race, Byleth?”

“Ah,” hesitates Byleth. Sothis blinks at her twin, who would usually bounce with excitement at such a prospect. A response so unenthused is... worrying, at best, so Sothis twitches her fingers in their secret shared sign for _okay?_

“No,” elaborates Byleth. She looks tired, sure — not that Sothis had expected any different after what she’d asked Byleth to do, earlier, but...

Sothis frowns. “What do you mean, no?” she demands crossly.

“Well,” begins Byleth. “Do you remember when we were nine years old, and we found an apple tree in this one noble’s orchard somewhere in the Alliance, once?” Sothis nods, bewildered. The _noble_ Byleth refers to had most likely been the venerable Duke Riegan himself — she vaguely remembers being nine years old when their father had taken a mission to drive away some bandits near the man’s territory, which included a number of orchards. But what did that have to do with... anything?

Hubert crosses his arms and shoots Byleth an impatient look, but she continues unhindered, “We were trying to get the juiciest apple we could. The apples we could reach were _amazing_ — my mouth still waters when I remember them — but we weren’t exactly the tallest nine-year-olds around, and we wanted to see if the ones near the top were even better. You said — do you remember what you said?”

“The apples near the top get more rain, so they _have_ to be better,” recalls Sothis slowly, at which Byleth nods solemnly. Sothis feels surprised that they both remember such an old memory with such clarity — but perhaps there is something to Byleth’s fervid declaration of the deliciousness of the apples that might explain that — wait, no, they’re here to investigate humans being turned into gigantic murderous beasts.

“Why ask about that now?” demands Sothis of her twin. A lifetime of being practically joined at the hip has made them ridiculously aware of each other’s thoughts, despite being such different people at heart; occasionally, though, they dissociate in a manner so complete that it makes Sothis feel strange, and lonely, and like she is just one step out of time in a dance, destined to always fall behind and be—

She shivers slightly.

“Do you remember how we finally got the apples at the top?” inquires Byleth, ignoring Sothis’ query — though her eyes narrow slightly, as if she knows the maelstrom Sothis’ thoughts are swirling around.

“We... I punched the tree, and it knocked one loose,” says Sothis, rubbing her knuckles at the phantom pain. Hubert raises a thin eyebrow at her.

“I was _nine_ ,” says Sothis defensively. “And I didn’t break anything.”

“And what did we try directly before that?” asks Byleth.

“You... climbed the tree? Or tried to, but you didn’t get all the way up?” questions Sothis.

“And what happened when you punched the tree while I was still in it?” asks Byleth again, and Sothis stares at her. Surely this could not be about Byleth feeling hurt about an incident from _so_ long ago—

“You fell,” says Sothis, deciding to humour her twin.

“Yes,” agrees Byleth grimly. “I fell.”

Hubert swivels his head between the two of them, now with both brows raised incredulously.

“Um,” says Sothis. “Sorry.”

Byleth blinks. “I didn’t say all that to get an apology you already gave me twelve years ago,” she says, blinking in surprise.

“Then why, pray tell, did you flesh out this utterly soporific scenario with such _gravity_?” demands Hubert before Sothis can ask.

“Because,” reveals Byleth, “she looks like she wants to punch a tree right now, and I don’t want to bruise my tailbone again when she inevitably does.”

Hubert looks like he is very bravely restraining his urge to strangle Byleth, and Sothis decides to vindicate her sister by curling her hand into a fist and slamming it into a nearby tree as hard as she can.

The dead tree splits in two, and she stares at it in mute surprise before her knuckles inform her brain of their displeasure at what they have been forced to endure.

“Why’d you beat about the bush so much?” asks Sothis quietly, after her hand has been bandaged, they are moving through the forest again, and Hubert has finally stopped sighing and glaring at them alternately.

“Because you would have said you were fine if I hadn’t, and then you might have thrown the inevitable punch at Hubert,” deadpans Byleth. “I don’t think he would have liked being split in half very much.”

“I would have liked to see you try,” growls Hubert from her side, glaring at Byleth for her audacity. _Clearly he still has relapses into his bad mood..._

“Now, now, children,” admonishes Sothis. “We can save the bickering for when we aren’t trying to escape the ritual murder forest.”

“Quite the contrast from your earlier mood,” smirks Hubert scornfully. “To need to resort to violence to calm yourself... how base of you.”

“Yes, we’re a very rough sort, us mercenaries,” agrees Sothis with a roll of her eyes. “Apologies for offending your noble sensitivities — and here I thought you would have been more interested in the _ritual murder_ part of what I just said.”

Hubert sniffs disdainfully. “That much was obvious,” he says dismissively. “Clearly these mages have discovered some form of magic that forces a hideous transformation onto a poor, unwilling soul — Gaspard’s residents being easy, unfortunate targets for such a thing. I am far more interested in those Crest Stones that were used to create the beasts — and what their removal would do to the ones that carry them. Where did these mages find such things, I wonder...”

“I wonder,” echoes Sothis, distracted. Something about the way he had said _hideous_ reminds her of Edelgard’s odd reaction before Petra had flown off... she remembers vaguely having said something about wanting to turn into a dragon. Was that truly the cause of Edelgard’s horrified look at her words; that she had somehow known such a thing was possible, and had thought Sothis wanted to become a nearly mindless abomination? But these beasts hardly resemble the magnificent creature painted in Seteth’s office — and anyway, how could Edelgard have...

Sothis shakes her head tightly. _It’s useless to speculate until I can ask her directly, and Hubert isn’t going to say a word without her around to give him permission to do so. Even so, these two are clearly hiding far more than—_

Her thought is interrupted by a sharp hiss. She blinks, casting a wary glance at her feet, but no snakes seem visible amongst the deadwood. “Is that...?” mumbles Byleth. Sothis follows her twin’s gaze to a clump of trees just ahead; she cannot see much from where she stands, but a step to the right, and—

Her jaw drops at the massive spinning purple aberration in the air, suspended half a foot above the ground. It seems like a disc from every angle she observes it from, even though by the way it cuts across the ground in a circular pattern with a rapid _scritch-scritch-scritch_ , it should appear to at least be a cylinder. The air around it seems oddly... heavy, too, as the three approach it to observe it closely.

Sothis gulps in trepidation when a branch she extends into the spinning edge of the disc turns into sawdust.

“I believe,” says Hubert, sounding disbelieving even as he utters the words, “that this may be a portal... how unusual, to find no supporting glyphs that anchor it here.”

“I concur,” concurs Byleth. “Must be something to do with one of these things,” she posits, drawing a smooth, round stone marked with a Crest from her pouch. “It feels similar, at least...”

Sothis considers this, then considers the beast she had rescued Edelgard from, and those she had seen on the way back to get Ashe’s siblings to safety in the battle camp. They had all been in vastly different locations — locations too distant from this forest for them to not have bumped into one of the Knights of Seiros vanguards in the way.

“This portal,” realises Sothis, “is how the beasts got to wherever they were taken from here. If we jump through, we’ll end up behind them.”

“Or we’ll end up removing ourselves from existence,” counters Hubert sardonically. “Since we have no idea if a matching portal to this one exists, and if such a thing does not exist...”

Sothis frowns. She’d rather not be spun out of existence by a measly _portal_ , of all things, but if there truly are more of these beasts, then they cannot waste any time in trying to see if there is merit to Hubert’s idea of removing the Crest Stone from the beasts to defeat them. She rather doubts it will work, but...

“What do you think, Byleth?” queries Sothis softly. Her sister’s opinion is always the one that matters the most to her, anyway, especially on magical matters — Byleth may be an unrelenting clown, sometimes, but the expertise on sorcery she has amassed through their father’s floundering tutelage and their mother’s unconquerable legacy is nothing short of supernatural.

“It’s a gamble,” replies Byleth, scratching her chin absently. “But I feel like it’s a good gamble — I have a hunch it might not even be possible to use portals like this without a matching set, so even if the other end doesn’t exist, it’ll... create itself, I think.”

“I would dearly like to meet the one who taught you,” mutters Hubert, sounding equal parts aggravated and appreciative. “You casually throw away such fascinating fragments of undiscovered magical knowledge — sure to change the fate of humanity if only they were more widely known...”

Byleth snorts, and Sothis’ heart gives a small pang. “I would have liked to meet her too,” says Byleth, sighing wistfully. “Some of her notes I still can’t figure out, even after years of puzzling through them.”

Hubert, surprisingly, seems to realise his _faux pas_ , and apologises with a solemn sincerity that seems jarring issued from him. Byleth waves it off with a smile, though, and focuses on the portal in front of her instead.

“Well,” she breathes, cracking her knuckles. “Shall we?”

“Is the intention for us to jump through together?” murmurs Hubert drolly. “How... sickeningly sweet.”

Sothis realises that she has been far too preoccupied with her whirling thoughts to have messed with his head of late, so she issues a wink in his direction and links her arm through his. On his other side, Byleth does the same without needing even the slightest cue, and they lean into him with dopey grins.

“Isn’t it?” purrs Sothis in perfect harmony with Byleth, as Hubert stares slack-jawed with a rising flush at the women hanging off his arms.

“You — _unhand me,_ ” demands Hubert, and tears himself free, face reddened rather adorably. He glares at the both of them, attempting to form words — before seeming to give up, turning abruptly, and leaping through the spinning void.

The twins stare in mild concern at the portal, which makes a slight _whistle_ like a boiling kettle a second after he has leapt through.

“I wonder if he actually vanished into nonexistence there,” muses Byleth.

“I wish we were that lucky,” grouses Sothis. Byleth hums in agreement, then turns to peer at Sothis with mild concern. “Are you really okay?” she asks softly.

“No,” sighs Sothis. “Everywhere I turn, there’s more secrets — secrets our enemies are keeping, secrets Rhea is keeping, secrets Dad is keeping... and now secrets our friends are keeping. I just — I wish I knew more about _any_ of it.”

“Hmmm,” hums Byleth again. “The first three frustrate me too, but... I don’t think you can blame either Hubert or Edelgard for keeping secrets from us.”

“No?” wonders Sothis, looking at her sister in surprise. _It seems we aren’t meant to line up very much today..._

“We haven’t exactly been very forthcoming with them,” shrugs Byleth. “Is it so wrong for them to do the same?”

Sothis scrubs a hand over her face with a frustrated grumble. “No,” she admits grudgingly. “But how am I even meant to tell — well, anyone? Oh, my daughter _— who is a few millennia old, by the way, and also I never knew she existed_ — missed me a lot and decided to try and bring me back to life but failed repeatedly, and then my mother — who is also in some fashion my... granddaughter? — apparently decided to try the same for whatever reason, and _somehow succeeded..._ we still don’t even know what she _did_ , or if that’s even how it actually happened, or how Dad _undid_ it when he was still on the run from the Knights. And our eyes and ears are shaped _exactly_ the same so we might actually be related by blood even though we thought for the longest time we might not have been... does that mean that I... I _ate_ your actual twin? The — the real Sothis?”

“ _You’re_ my actual twin,” says Byleth, voice sharper than Sothis has ever heard it; her tone brooks absolutely no room for argument. Sothis swallows down the brief surge of inexplicable feeling that threatens to momentarily overcome her. “And I think,” continues Byleth more sagely, “that you’re overcomplicating things a little.”

“ _Really,_ ” replies Sothis sardonically, her voice raspier than usual. “You sound terribly certain.”

“I’ve read the books,” confirms Byleth in a terribly certain tone. “The part where you tell your crush about you being the reincarnation of the Goddess comes _after_ the part where you tell her that you want her babies.”

Sothis sputters, turning bright red. “Edelgard isn’t my — we’re just — she’s just got a really nice — you are _evil_ ,” she manages to choke out.

Byleth, unheeding of the panicked chaos rampaging through Sothis’ mind and being filtered out through her traitorous mouth into a nonsensical string of words, lifts her hand up high and deposits it with a dramatic _thunk_ on her twin’s shoulder, giving her a comically exaggerated look of mock-sympathy.

“And you, dear sister,” says Byleth sombrely, “are in dire need of a push.”

“What—” Sothis starts to say, but Byleth has already turned towards the portal, and with a gentle shove, takes them into the abyss—

—which resolves into a _staggeringly_ bright montage of colours that sears itself into her retinas, the whirling hues of light seeming to tumble into an unending stream of more, even more, and yet again more, until she is sure she has landed far past the edge of reality and her vision—

—suddenly readjusts into the sight of barren soil, into which they tumble with a crash.

“Ah, you survived,” issues Hubert’s dark voice from somewhere above them. “I was beginning to think you had perished after all... how unfortunate.”

“Ow,” mumbles Sothis, massaging her head, as the portal behind them vanishes into nothingness. “What... what was _that_?”

“Your guess is as good as mine,” groans Byleth back, rubbing at her eyes as Hubert towers over them menacingly. “What happened to you in there?”

“What?” blinks Sothis, sitting up and looking at Byleth in surprise. “Wait, you — you saw me?”

Byleth shrugs, and accepts the hand Hubert offers to lift her up. “You looked like — oh,” she says.

“Like... oh?” repeats Sothis, befuddled, rising with Hubert’s help. Byleth points soundlessly at the gaggle of Crest Beasts in the distance, headed in the direction of the mountain pass. Sothis’ jaw drops at the sheer size of the army — more than a _dozen_ in number, from what she can make out at this distance. It had taken six students to kill the one they had fought, and that too after Edelgard had already wounded it... this many would be an almost insurmountable challenge, even with the Knights of Seiros around to help.

Sothis _really_ hopes Hubert’s theory on their Crest Stones bears merit, even as she frowns — it doesn’t make sense for the Beasts to be headed to the bitterly cold Oghma when the scattered Gaspard is much closer, and probably a much more appealing target for blood-starved beasts. _They appear to be moving quite slowly, thankfully, but why in that dir—_

Her blood runs cold when she realises that the beasts are headed to the Oghma because on the other side of the mountain pass lies a direct and almost entirely undefended passage that winds unimpeded... into the boundaries of Garreg Mach.

“We need to catch up,” says Sothis. “That will — we can _not_ let them get to the Monastery.”

Byleth’s eyes widen, and Hubert grunts in frustration as they all simultaneously start to sprint in a doomed attempt at routing their enemy.

“I agree, but I doubt we can catch up,” says Hubert, cursing.

“Maybe we can,” pants Byleth, slowing as she points at a pair of horse riders approaching them rapidly from the road leading to Gaspard. Sothis blinks in amazement, and realises she ought to thank her lucky stars for the present. _I wonder if it would be considered trite to thank the Goddess,_ she muses with a barely suppressed snort.

“Halt, Sothis!” calls Ferdinand from a distance as she runs, slowing as he approaches. It takes Sothis a second to piece together the identity of the other ginger-haired rider, not having interacted with her very much—

* * *

“Heya!” calls Leonie, looking down at the trio they’ve somehow found all the way out here in this harsh land where nothing grows. “Cap— Professor Jeralt assigned us to the mobile patrol, so we’re keeping an eye out for stragglers on the battlefield. And then we found Thunder Catherine, who said there might have been some suspicious strangers in this direction, so... need a ride?”

Captain — _Professor now, Leonie,_ she reminds herself — Jeralt’s daughters blink at her in tandem, and smoothly slide onto the saddle behind her without a word.

The brave warhorse the Professor had lent her accepts their added weight without a word of complaint, and she snickers at Ferdinand as he glares at Hubert when his less weathered-looking pony complains at the added burden.

“Race you back!” hollers Leonie at him, speeding her horse back down the way she had come without waiting for his reply. “You two alright back there?” she adds in a quieter voice, though she realises most of her words probably went unheard as the horse accelerates and the wind picks up far faster than she’d anticipated, even with such a quarry.

“Never better,” replies the one closest to her, seeming to hear her anyway. _Sothis,_ her mind supplies readily. Not that she could ever forget their names, given that they’re _Captain Jeralt’s kids_ —

_Ahem. Easy, Leonie._

“How’d you get yourselves all the way out here?” wonders Leonie, trying to sound casual.

“We took a jaunt through a quasi-permanent topologically trivial rosenbridge,” replies the other twin, sounding even more casual. _Byleth._

“Um, that’s — that’s pretty cool,” replies Leonie, thoroughly lost. “I’ll be honest, I don’t really understand what you said there. But you sound pretty smart! I mean, not that I thought you weren’t smart before, just that you sounded like, _really_ smart, when you said the... the thing.”

“She’s trying to impress you and get you to become her apprentice so she can one-up Dad,” interjects Sothis dryly, and Byleth makes a wounded sound. “Don’t let her get to you, I’m pretty sure those words don’t actually mean anything.”

“Oh,” blinks Leonie. “I... huh. That’s pretty... hey, wait! Why do you think I’ll be the one becoming the apprentice?”

“Because... you’re younger?” questions Byleth hesitantly. “Isn’t that how these things work?”

“I don’t know, actually,” muses Leonie. “Maybe... but I’m definitely Jeralt’s one and only greatest apprentice, and don’t you forget it!”

“But,” argues Byleth. “Wouldn’t it be even nicer if you were to be his greatest apprentice, _and_ his greatest daughter’s — ow! Fine, tallest daughter — _ouch, Sothis!_ Alright, alright — _one_ of his daughters’ greatest apprentice? Oh, hey Roach.”

Leonie blinks, wondering if she’s being insulted in the strangest way possible — then realises the woman likely knows the horse’s name. It would be utterly like the Cap— _Professor_ to name his horse something so... weird.

“I’ll have to think about it,” concedes Leonie. Despite their sporadically... befuddling behaviour, everyone in the Officer’s Academy and beyond agrees on the skill the two women possess, and they could definitely help her on her quest to become the best mercenary since her hero himself...

“So,” yells Leonie behind her, trying to be heard past the roar of the wind in her ears as she speeds the horse to a mad gallop. “Where exactly are we headed?”

“Drop us off five hundred paces away from that army of Crest Beasts, near the mountain pass!” yells back Sothis.

Leonie’s jaw drops, thankful they can’t see her gawp at their audacity. “Are — are you sure?” she asks uncertainly, but turns her horse onto the higher path leading up to the mountain pass anyway. “Those things are scary strong... we fought one of them, and even C— Professor Jeralt had trouble that time!”

“We’ve planned something,” Sothis assures her. “But on the off chance it doesn’t work out, I’ll need you to gather everyone the Knights can spare and attack the beasts from the front, and then find Dad and tell him exactly this: _the early bird catches the fish._ ”

“Isn’t that meant to be a worm?” mumbles Leonie in confusion, slowing her horse to a trot as she drops off the twins. The beasts are much more visible from up here, even though they are still quite far away — she shudders as she hears their roars bounce off each other with increasing volume. “I’ll let him know,” promises Leonie. “Are you _sure_ you’ll be okay?”

Byleth pats Roach’s side gently, as Sothis gently strokes the horse’s head. “Don’t worry,” reassures Byleth, grinning at Leonie. “Can’t make you my greatest apprentice if I’m dead.”

“You should be _my_ greatest apprentice instead,” counters Sothis, making Byleth stick out her tongue at her twin in a show of childishness Leonie hadn’t really expected from the usually stoic-looking woman. “I bet I’ll do a much better job than this lout. But stay out of trouble so you can decide, hm?”

“You bet I will,” vows Leonie with a grin, racing back down the path. _Heh. It’s nice that they don’t take themselves too seriously..._

She passes Ferdinand and Hubert on the way, who look... strangely comfortable on their overburdened pony, given their usual snarky squabbles that have become infamous amongst the students at the Academy. _Guess battle draws everyone closer,_ muses Leonie to herself with a chuckle. _Or maybe..._

Leonie pats Roach in approval as she manages to almost effortlessly swivel the mare around to the fork in the road that leads back to Gaspard. She fervently hopes she can get the word out to everyone there before Sothis launches her offensive against the beasts, whatever her plan for that may be — she’d heard that the woman was responsible for the plan that saw Edelgard and Ashe’s siblings successfully rescued from the castle after their capture, but... _surely Captain Jeralt had more to do with that than his kid, right?_

Lost in her contemplation, she almost doesn’t notice as the landscape around her shifts slowly, yet surely — the faded, earthen tones of the tundra gain a grassier, healthier sheen, and the air starts to feel more damp, heralding the dark storm clouds that have darkened the land steadily since much earlier in the afternoon. As the land becomes more habitable, the barren land starts to sprout into farmland, and the yellowish-brown hue of faded soil turns to the yellowish-green hue of almost-ripe wheatgrass, and its scent slowly sinks into her and makes her shoulders loosen a touch. The fresh, earthy aroma of a crop just waiting for one final shower of rain before being ready for harvest, the coppery tang of blood, and the subtle, smoky stink of... _wait, that’s not right._

Faint smoke seems to issue from around a bend in the path she races her steed through, and as she turns the corner she realises it must have been from a fire long faded that has almost completely consumed one of the watchtowers. Leonie swallows in trepidation when she sees a veritable graveyard of rebels scattered to the right of the path, directly opposite the side with the gently smouldering ruin. She slows her steed and carefully draws a sword before hopping down to investigate the charred ruin; this watchtower, she remembers, had a ballista on it, and as such would have had someone from the Officer’s Academy manning it...

 _I really hope it wasn’t Ignatz_ , she thinks, feeling a surge of nausea even as the thought floats past her mind. _No, I really hope it wasn’t anyone I know at all._

The wooden struts of the tower have all but collapsed, and the body of a Knight, peppered with arrows, lies a few paces away from the tower’s sturdier stone foundation. Leonie’s heart stutters painfully in her chest as she spots the edge of a shoe jutting out almost imperceptibly from beneath the wreckage, its owner almost certainly buried underneath the hail of wood. She puts a hand on the blackened wooden beam on top of the wreckage — and draws her hand back with a pained hiss when she realises how hot it still feels to the touch.

She searches around for a moment to find something to lift it with; her sword’s blade wouldn’t handle the strain at that angle, and she’d stupidly opted to not wear her leather-padded armoured vest today, thinking it would only slow her down in a fight. _Nothing for it_ , she thinks, ripping a vambrace off and bunching it tightly into her hand as she renews her efforts to lift the wreckage. The wood still feels almost unbearably hot, but she pushes past the discomfort to throw it to the side, heaving with the effort.

Piece by piece, she uncovers what is undoubtedly a fellow student’s corpse with a sense of mounting horror — the long boots, the uniformed skirt, the torn sleeve barely covering the pale hand with the arrow grasped firmly in it, the frayed coat... and the still, glazed eyes set beneath the shock of short, messy purple hair.

 _Bernadetta?_ she wonders numbly, something inside her heart shattering. _No... no, she can’t be—_

Leonie barely has the time to process the storm bubbling inside her before Bernadetta’s eyes flick in her direction, the arrow in her hand shifts, and she tries to stab at Leonie’s throat with an unhinged snarl.

* * *

“I won’t,” hisses Bernadetta madly, “die in this _stupid_ field! Or — I’ll kill you before I do! Don’t you _dare—_ huh?”

“Gah!” yelps Leonie, jumping back from the wreckage as Bernadetta futilely swipes through the air, half her body still stuck underneath the burning wood. “It’s me! Please don’t kill me!”

“Leonie?” breathes Bernadetta, scarcely able to believe it. Leonie gives her a wary stare with... tears in her eyes? Bernadetta blinks, but the teary-eyed visage of Leonie only shifts closer. _Wow,_ thinks Bernadetta, even as she flinches in fright. _Wonder why she’s crying..._

“Um,” manages Bernadetta with a rasp when Leonie has stared at her with a very strangely reverent and stupefied expression for too long for it to be accidental, “are you okay?”

Leonie startles and nods hurriedly. “I’m sorry!” she exclaims. “I just — here, I’ll get you out,” and leans over to lift the beam pinning down Bernadetta, grunting in exertion. Bernadetta desperately tries to scramble out, but only manages to free her side, and her left leg remains pinned underneath a variety of debris.

“Whew, okay, that’s a bit heavier than I thought,” pants Leonie. “Hold on, I’ll get the rest of you,” she says, and snakes down, prone, next to Bernadetta’s legs and pushes up with both arms at the block of wood holding Bernadetta’s leg in place. Bernadetta blinks in fascination as the wooden plank weighing her down slowly rises, and her legroom goes from no movement, to a wiggle, to her being able to slide it out cleanly. She scrambles away from the debris as quickly as she can manage, rasping out a weak, “Thanks, I was sure I’d be a goner if you hadn’t shown up,” but freezes and turns back in dismay when Leonie doesn’t reply to her and doesn’t move from her position on the ground.

“Uh,” grunts Leonie, her arms trembling slightly with the effort as she holds the beams of debris above her head. “I’m a bit — stuck here — whoops.”

“I’ll—” starts Bernadetta, and realises she has no idea what she would have proposed. She racks her mind in desperation, but the half-awake smoke-addled state of her mind isn’t even up to fuel her usual stressed anxiety, let alone find a proper solution. In the end, all she can say, her fear mounting as Leonie’s breaths grow increasingly laboured, is, “I’ll — I’ll slide you out. As soon as you let go! Or before!”

Leonie grunts in what she hopes is affirmation, and Bernadetta grabs hold of her legs as firmly as she can manage. “On three!” says Bernadetta, swallowing past her parched throat. “One—” she starts, but her mounting panic marks that count as the end of her patience, so she gives it up and heaves as firmly as she can manage.

Leonie slides out of the wreckage with a squawk as her head bounces off the base of the stone tower, one of her boots slamming firmly into Bernadetta’s shin as the wreckage — now thankfully behind Leonie — collapses. Bernadetta tries to dodge Leonie’s flying body, which she has pulled out with much greater force than she’d wanted, but ends up tripping herself up as she tumbles down onto the ground and her face smashes into Leonie’s chest, who wheezes as the breath is driven out of her lungs.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” chants Bernadetta desperately, rolling off the woman and checking desperately for a pulse. Her soot-blackened fingers leave dark trails down Leonie’s neck as it _thrums_ back against her touch, and Bernadetta nearly collapses in relief at finding a heartbeat even as Leonie gives her a bewildered look.

Still lying prone, Leonie chuckles weakly and says, still huffing and puffing, “That hurt a bit, but it wouldn’t have killed me, you know...”

“Oh,” mumbles Bernadetta. “Sorry. I didn’t — I don’t think I can think straight right now. Heh. Think straight — straight as an arrow. And I shoot arrows! Maybe Alois would like that one...”

Leonie laughs much louder than her awful joke warrants, and Bernadetta blinks in alarm. “Um, are you...” she blinks several more times when Leonie’s laughter only grows wilder, and she seems to tremble with its force as tears stream from her eyes.

“Heh-heh. You found it that funny?” inquires Bernadetta bashfully.

Leonie’s chuckles die off slowly as she stares at Bernadetta with some incomprehensible emotion, before drawing close and smashing her into a _very_ painful hug.

“Hilarious,” mutters Leonie into her shoulder, shaking even as Bernadetta suppresses her groan of agony as Leonie presses into bruises she didn’t even know she had — but even so, Bernadetta manages to mumble out a heartfelt, “Thanks for saving my life! I don’t know how I’ll ever repay— ow!”

Before she can keep voicing her profuse gratitude or apologise for voicing her pain, Leonie draws back, horror painted all over her face, and chokes out, “I’m so sorry! I should have realised you were — and spending so long trapped under — water! I’ll get you some!” and scrambles off to a horse waiting on the road.

Bernadetta feels much less like her throat has been stuffed with sandpaper when she begins to drain the waterskin Leonie brings her, and feels much more like her insides have turned into the skin of a cactus, which she chalks up as a massive improvement. She wasn’t aware it was even _possible_ for water to feel so... reinvigorating! It surges through her arteries in a roaring tide, refilling her battered and bruised body with strength she had thought forever lost to her, after that... _hour? Two hours?_ trapped underneath the smouldering debris.

It makes Bernadetta wonder at the oddity of her mind, too — because thinking about being almost burnt to a crisp doesn’t really evoke much emotion in her beyond a sense of bone-deep fatigue from all that time spent lying absolutely still underneath the roaring fire and taking ragged breaths through the blood-soaked remnant of her sleeve and hoping the rebels that she hadn’t managed to brutally murder with the ballista didn’t discover that she was still alive.

And that Knight who’d jumped out of the blaze to her inevitable death at the hands of the rebels, just so she could continue manning the ballista and adding to the blood on her hands... what had the woman said again? The memory flashes past in a tired haze through her mind, and removed from the fog of her typical anxiety through the ache in her bones, she can’t even really recall the sense of fear and loss she’d felt as the Knight had leapt off to leave her alone in the blaze. _I am a leaf on the wind,_ she thinks the woman’s last words were — right before she had jumped. Just remembering the words makes the water washing over Bernadetta’s tongue taste like the ash scattered over her body, but the only emotion she can associate with the memory is dulled, at best; at worst, a pale mockery of the terror she has suffered.

 _So I can spend the rest of my life afraid of what my father might do to me if I displease him even slightly, but after something like this I just feel... tired?_ she thinks, half-angry and half-resigned. _Maybe this is what they mean when they talk about shock..._

With an effort, Bernadetta shakes herself out of her mind as the last drop of water drips onto her tongue and she greedily laps it up, staring at the empty depth of the waterskin mournfully. Leonie clears her throat from above her, saying, “Sorry, I wish I’d have brought more along, but — I’ll get you to the camp as quickly as possible, and—”

“No!” cuts Bernadetta in sudden realisation, her voice ringing louder than she’d intended. She flushes at the taken aback look on Leonie’s face — _idiot, Bernie! This is why everyone hates you_ — but manages to stammer out, “I — I mean, we can’t. S-sorry for yelling! But we can’t go to the camp, because there’s a whole secret rebel force I saw from the tower heading towards Gaspard from a secret pathway next to the river that passes through the big dark forest before we were attacked by some rebels who had mages that set fire to the tower so I couldn’t send a message to anyone, but if we don’t hurry to warn everyone else the secret rebel force will attack everyone from behind, and that — that would be really, really bad! Awful! Absolutely no good!”

Leonie stares at her with wide eyes, shaking her head slightly as Bernadetta’s rambled warning sinks in. “You’re right, someone has to warn them — but aren’t you injured?” she frets. “You won’t be any good if we run into anyone along the way, and I’d feel awful putting you in harm’s way after you — after what happened here.”

Bernadetta shakes her head insistently, fine ash scattering in a cloud around her hair as she rises to her feet with great difficulty that she tries to pass off as being from long disuse of her limbs. “I’m okay!” she proclaims. “Just some minor bruises,” she continues, twirling on her heel to demonstrate, scattering another cloud of ash in her wake. She stumbles at the last second, but manages to catch herself before she falls and extends her arm in an elaborate motion she’d seen Dorothea do once, as the turns back to face Leonie again. “See?”

Leonie works her mouth around a sputter as Bernadetta belatedly registers the profusely bleeding gash on her extended arm. “Um, apart from that... but i-it’s just a scratch! We have more important things to worry about,” she declares with a breeziness she _really_ does not feel, but hopes comes across in her voice anyway, even as blood trails down her wrist and pools into the palm of her hand. Maybe she can wrap something around it—

“Here,” says Leonie urgently, and takes her shirt off.

Bernadetta squeaks in mortification and exclaims, “W-what?! Hey! You — you can’t just —” and buries her face into her hands as she furiously tries to forget the image that immediately sears itself into her brain.

 _Stupid! Useless! Look what you made her do,_ she scolds herself as she registers the sound of cloth tearing. _Bad, bad, bad—_ and flinches when something wraps around her arm. She snakes the fingers on one of her hands apart slightly and opens an eye, only to squeeze it shut again when she realises Leonie is wrapping her freshly torn sleeve around her wound and that her face is _far_ too close for comfort—

“There, all done,” says Leonie, sounding amused. “You can open your eyes now.”

Bernadetta gives it another couple of moments to be sure anyway, and pats herself on the back for her decision when she sees Leonie _just_ finishing up her last button, looking at her in bemusement.

“Sorry,” says Leonie tritely, still looking somewhat entertained. “I know my body probably isn’t the most pleasant thing to look at — but your arm was bleeding _really_ badly, and if we can’t go back to the camp...”

“N-not pleasant?” exclaims Bernadetta, the second half of Leonie’s statement not even registering in her mind through the indignation. “What?”

“Uh, your... reaction...?” trails off Leonie slowly with a confused look.

“I — I didn’t want to offend you!” cries Bernadetta. “I thought — you wouldn’t have wanted me to, well, s-see anything, but, um...” she falters for a moment, losing her nerve, before she shakes her head and insists through her nervousness, “There’s nothing not pleasant about your — anything! Not — not that I saw, um, anything! But i-if I had, then that’s what I would have said!”

“Oh,” says Leonie, blinking, and if Bernadetta isn’t horribly mistaken, she spies the beginnings of a blush on the other woman’s face as she scratches the back of her head in an oddly shy manner. “Wow... thanks, I guess.”

“Um, you’re welcome,” replies Bernadetta, staring at Leonie in slight wonder as they slowly walk over to the really massive horse. _Wow, she’s actually... really pretty when she... no, we discussed this, Bernie! Bad!_

“S-so,” casts Bernadetta desperately, trying to flush her mind of the images that just _won’t_ leave as the massive horse snickers at her — until she realises something she’d missed. “Wait... you agreed to not go back to the camp!”

“Yeah,” agrees Leonie, sounding reluctant even as she rummages in a saddlebag for something. “You use the bow, right? I’ve got a spare, so you can protect yourself in case of the worst — here,” producing a long, worn steel bow that looks like it’s seen more polished days, but nevertheless seems well crafted and well cared for. “Arrows in the saddlebag on the right,” says Leonie, jumping into the saddle and reaching down a hand to help Bernadetta up and patting her knee gently before they ride off.

The horse speeds up to a gallop far faster than Bernadetta had anticipated, and while she is stuffing arrows from Leonie’s quiver into her one of her boots, the horse decides to leap over a corpse on the ground and she almost falls off with a surprised flail at the sudden motion — until her hand snags on the back of Leonie’s shirt, making her saviour grunt in surprise.

“S-sorry!” shouts Bernadetta over the wind that whips at her singed hair and makes it smack painfully against her neck.

Leonie shakes her head without turning back, and yells over her shoulder, “You can just grab on to me if we’re going too fast!”

Bernadetta honestly considers the offer for a moment, before her eyes roam down Leonie’s sweat-slicked, heavily-muscled back to which her white uniform shirt sticks, and which Bernadetta would also ostensibly have to wrap herself around — and realises she would be _forever_ doomed if she put her hands anywhere on the other woman.

Instead, she stutters out a, “Thanks, but I-I’m fine!” and grabs the side of the saddle, which makes her have to hold her wrist at an odd angle that stretches the wound on her arm uncomfortably, but Bernadetta knows it is the price she must pay for thinking such — such _things_ about a fellow student.

_Don’t be weird, Bernie..._

“Um, you tore your sleeve off for me,” begins Bernadetta by way of apology.

“It’s just a sleeve. I’ll wear a vambrace over it, no problem!” replies Leonie cheerily, waving her bare arm.

“B-but you don’t have to!” insists Bernadetta, and flushes as she realises what that might sound like. _No good, no good._ “I can — if you don’t mind, I can fix it for you when we get back to the Monastery! It would only take a few minutes — although I’ll have to use new cloth. Wouldn’t be nice to give you this blood-soaked rag, heh.”

Leonie actually turns back to her in surprise when she says that, and exclaims, “You can do that? That’s pretty cool!”

“Yeah!” replies Bernadetta happily. “I’m actually pretty good at — _oh Goddess what in the world is that_.”

“You haven’t seen one of those today yet?” replies Leonie, sounding surprised, but the words whiz meaninglessly through Bernadetta’s ears because her entire being is preoccupied by staring at the distant monster which surely doubles as an _abomination_ , a _manifestation of all the world’s evils_ , _the_ _sum total of everything wrong with reality—_

“That,” whimpers Bernadetta, trying to distill her thoughts into a single all-encompassing statement. In the end, her mind is in such a state of frozen horror that she can only come up with: “That is a very scary looking monster.”

“Crest Beast, apparently,” corrects Leonie, spurring the horse faster as they zoom past it. “Not that I know what something like that might have to do with a Crest...”

Bernadetta’s mind is spinning in too much horror at the implication that this beast has anything _at all_ to do with _any_ Crest, because as far as she knows, only humans are known to bear Crests and — _nope, not going to think about it. Nuh-uh._

She resolves instead to think about much happier things that don’t make her want to shrivel up into a ball or scrub her own skin off; things like cute venomous plants, or cute stuffed toy fish, or—

“Leonie!” yells a distant voice. Bernadetta blinks as she turns around, only to catch a handful of her own smoky hair whipping into her face without seeing much of anything. She turns back the other way — and almost falls off her saddle when she sees a massive white wyvern flying perfectly level to the horse she rides on, with two familiar faces seated atop it.

“Claude?” shouts Leonie in disbelief, almost absently sticking an arm out to steady Bernadetta back into her saddle as she teeters over the edge. “And — Dimitri?”

“Hey!” cheers Claude. “I picked — woah, Bernadetta! You, uh... you look a bit toasty there. Are you alright?”

“No,” admits Bernadetta. “I really wish I was back in my room right now.”

“You and I are of one mind on that, Bernadetta,” rumbles Dimitri darkly. Bernadetta has to discreetly pinch herself when she hears him speak directly to her — and in such earnest agreement, too! — and accidentally ends up picking an already bruised spot on her leg. Her muffled yelp, at least, sounds like something someone who didn’t know her would think of as a sound of acquiescence. Dimitri is no exception, and he nods at her affably at the noise that escapes her mouth.

“Why are you flying so low, Claude?” asks Leonie with an exasperated tone. “And what are you doing out here?”

“Ah... funny story, that. And too long for a passing encounter such as this one! But I’m flying low because your steed looked mighty lonely from up there, so I decided to come hang out,” replies Claude with a grin. “But mostly it was just curiosity at where you might be headed with such haste.”

“Sothis has some sort of a plan that needs me to gather everyone available up to head to the Oghma mountain pass, because there’s a giant army of Crest Beasts gathered up there,” explains Leonie. “And I need to deliver a message to Professor Jeralt, _and_ we need to make sure to do all that before the secret rebel army gets there.”

Bernadetta blinks, not having heard Leonie’s reason for being so far away from the battle — she supposes it must have been on her way to warn everyone that Leonie had found her in the wreckage of that watchtower. Bernadetta shivers, wondering just how close she had been to being forgotten and slowly dry-roasted alive by the weight of the scorched wreckage on top of her.

_Someone a little less kind than her and you’d be a lump of charcoal right about now, Bernie._

“Secret rebel army?” wonders Dimitri. “That sounds most troubling...”

“Y-yeah, troubling is right! There’s a huge amount of them — maybe a couple hundred or so! — along that river near the forest,” pipes up Bernadetta, “and they looked like they were going to attack everyone from the side by the direction they were headed in. So we’re rushing to tell everyone before it’s too late!”

Claude curses colourfully using words Bernadetta has never even heard her sailor-tongued mother speak — on the admittedly infrequent occasions the woman visits the Varley estate — and says, “We’ll need to get the alert out a bit faster than you can manage on your own, then, because Professor Jeralt is nowhere near the battlefront with the rebels — he’s actually all the way near the castle town, last I saw, trying to protect the townsfolk. And if that message of yours is important, then you can’t delay meeting him, either.”

“What do you suggest, then?” asks Leonie, the concern in her voice echoing the _thump-thump-thump_ of doom in Bernadetta’s heart.

“I’m trying to think,” replies Claude, sounding frustrated. “Maybe...”

“We could deliver the message to the forces ourselves,” suggests Dimitri. “Claude, I am certain that this wyvern of yours can fly much quicker than a horse, and that would free Leonie up to take her message to the Professor, too.”

“That... might actually work! Good plan, Dimitri,” praises Claude. “Well, you heard him, so I’ll be—”

“Wait!” exclaims Bernadetta, then shrinks nervously when Claude flicks his gaze to her. “That is, um, can I — can I go with you?!”

“If you want to,” agrees Claude, looking surprised. “Hopper — that’s this magnificent wyvern, here — is used to a lot of weight, so she’ll bear you without a sweat. She isn’t the fastest, but she’ll fly true.”

“That said,” he adds belatedly, “I don’t actually know how we’re going to get you on. I guess we’ll need to stop—”

“That won’t be necessary,” interjects Dimitri. “I can lift her onto our saddle with ease.”

“Bernadetta?” questions Leonie worriedly. Bernadetta shakes her head, thinking of a Knight who leapt to death for her; then, realising Leonie can’t see her, wraps her arms around the waist of the woman who saved her in a tight hug, and mumbles into her ear, “Thanks, but I have a favour I need to repay. But t-thanks again for saving my life — I promise I’ll make it up to you for the trouble!”

“Stay safe!” shouts Leonie as Dimitri somehow lifts Bernadetta clean off the horse with a single arm and onto the wyvern behind him. “You need to sew my sleeve back on! You — you promised!”

“And you need to give it to me, so you have to stay alive too — w-without taking your shirt off this time!” shouts Bernadetta in reply, as Claude and Dimitri wave goodbye to Leonie and the wyvern lifts higher into the sky.

Bernadetta squeaks when Claude turns back to belatedly raise an amused eyebrow at her parting words, but opts to not say anything because she can’t think of a way to reassure him of her innocence in a way that doesn’t make her out to be a deviant of some sort. _Not that he’d be wrong to get such an idea, considering the filth that passed through your mind back there, Bernie,_ she concedes to herself, watching the distant speck of Leonie’s horse race down the path for as long as she can before the wyvern carrying her rises too high and cloudy mist blocks her view.

“Man,” sighs Claude mournfully. “Kids these days really make you feel like life’s just passing you by, eh, Dimitri?”

“Er, not that I’ve noticed,” replies Dimitri, as Bernadetta blinks in surprise. “What makes you say that?”

“Ah, nevermind, just the musings of an old soul,” sighs Claude again, sounding wistful this time.

“Aren’t you... our age?” wonders Bernadetta. “You — you look pretty young!”

“He is,” confirms Dimitri with a frown. “Though I’ve come to learn that his sense of humour is a tad... er, warped.”

“Warped?!” exclaims Claude in indignation. “Hmph. Better warped than just as straight-laced as the trail of vengeance that Seteth wreaks upon the land when he spots my mischief, Your Princeliness!”

Bernadetta contemplates the implications behind the very... _oddly specific..._ simile, and Dimitri argues, “He wouldn’t do so much of that if you didn’t take such joy in provoking him, Claude. And if you mean to allude to my own, er, straight-laced nature, I assure you that I am quite capable of having fun!”

Bernadetta wonders if she should begin taking notes to use in her romance novel, as Claude argues right back with a, “No offense, Dimitri, but I bet you wouldn’t know fun if you were staring it dead in the eye during an epic duel to the death at dawn. Which, coincidentally, is about the only situation you would probably ever even encounter it in.”

Neither of the two are a particularly good fit for the character of her protagonist, reflects Bernadetta, but their dialogue is refreshingly imaginative! And uttered with such inanity, even considering the almost nightmarish situation they all find themselves in — something about the atmosphere sets her heart more at ease that it has been since she left her room at her own house, let alone the Monastery, so she pulls out a somehow miraculously untouched notebook along with a tattered quill from the folds of her uniform.

Bernadetta mulls over her lack of an ink pot, and briefly considers dipping the quill into her bandaged wound to use her own blood to write, before deciding that such a thing would be far too morbid for the light-hearted subject matter, and begins carving her ideas into the parchment with a harsh _scritch-scratch._

 _Cocky, but caring,_ she decides on the theme for Claude’s dialogue. _Hides his caring nature because he is afraid of commitment to his jaunty declarations_ , when she hears him jokingly boast about his superior tactical intellect. _Very witty, liable to break many hearts if left unchecked._ She considers the earnest way the two bicker amongst themselves, but how Claude always spares a besotted smile for the blonde prince after he throws a barb, and decisively tacks on a _currently very heavily checked_ to the end.

Dimitri is a harder puzzle to crack, because he hides a lot more of his nature behind his wall of earnestness, but... _Gentle, good-natured, but really strong,_ she thinks, remembering his solemn agreement with her sentiment of wanting to be back in her room, and the ease with which he’d transferred her between saddles. _Cleverer than he looks,_ she writes, hearing Dimitri make a quip about something to do with weed that makes Claude snicker. _Sometimes unintentionally hilarious,_ she adds, when it becomes clear that Claude’s laughter is at Dimitri’s expense. _A sense of tragedy about him... seems to be on his way to healing, however._

Bernadetta looks up at the sudden silence to find both house leaders staring at her with mixtures of bewilderment and concern on their faces. “Ah!” she shrieks, almost losing her notebook to the very, very treacherous drop below. She stuffs it hurriedly into her pocket again before her day can go from being horrendously awful to unsalvageably horrendously awful, and replies to their silent questioning stares with a stuttered, “Um, I was just — struck with sudden inspiration! T-the early afternoon sky up here is just so, um, calming! Haha!”

“What were you writing about?” queries Dimitri curiously, and Bernadetta’s panic magnifies to previously unknown heights. _He’s going to pick me up and throw me off the wyvern if I tell him what it really was, I know it!_

“Um — um... p-plants! Yeah, that’s it, I was writing about plants! All kinds of plants!” proclaims Bernadetta, hoping the rivulets of sweat gathering at the base of her neck don’t give her away.

Dimitri blinks in fascination, and Claude ponders, “Wonder what inspired you to write about plants all the way up here...”

Bernadetta recoils in horror, not having thought her excuse through that far. _Maybe going with them was a really bad idea... I just wanted to have a chance at saving that Knight’s friends like she saved me! I didn’t want to be thrown off a wyvern!_

“I’m no expert on writing,” begins Dimitri before Bernadetta can begin to ruminate in earnest over the odds of her survival if she were to jump from the wyvern herself, “but I think the afternoon sun and the clouds above us would provide a most inspiring visual, no?”

“That — that’s exactly it! The sun, because plants, um, grow, i-in the sun! Yes! Ahaha!” agrees Bernadetta, trying her hardest to not let the edge of hysteria creep into her forced laughter. _What am I doing?_ Taking notes on romance by watching the rather oblivious heirs of two nations flirt with each other while riding on a wyvern with said heirs, even though either of these two are more important than anyone in her _entire family line_?

And all that less than an hour after having survived being almost crushed and subsequently burned to death, and on the same day she murdered dozens of rebels who—

_Who probably just wanted to go home._

“I was kidding, really, but that’s a good point... sometimes the obvious is easy to overlook, huh?” muses Claude, as Bernadetta tries her hardest to not hyperventilate while she is still hundreds of feet in the air.

“Admittedly, I have trouble with the concept sometimes, but I’ve come to realise that it’s good to have friends to point such things out,” says Dimitri, shooting Claude a warmly grateful look, and Bernadetta relaxes marginally. Maybe they’re going to be too distracted by each other to throw her off after all...

Claude laughs and turns to glance at Dimitri with such unexpected sincerity in his eyes — and none of his usual calculating gleam — that Bernadetta feels like an intruder in their heartfelt moment.

But mostly, she feels a horrible itch to take her notebook out again to put to paper the abundance of material being presented to her, nevermind her heart skipping far more beats at the thought than can possibly be good for it.

“That includes you, Bernadetta,” adds Claude lightly, winking at her. Her jaw drops when Dimitri nods eagerly in agreement.

“I may not know you very well,” says Dimitri earnestly, “but you must have a kind soul, to be able to think of something as warm as plants on such a — dark day. Especially since you look like you’ve just been through an inferno... People like you inspire me to be better, and I would be proud to call you a friend.”

Inspire? Her? _Friend_? Also her? _The Prince has gone loopy,_ Bernadetta realises with fraught horror. Now the Kingdom’s going to send assassins after her for vengeance, and then she’ll have to go on the run, and her life will forever be—

“There’s... a lot more of the Knights than I expected out here,” interrupts Claude through her free-fall into hysteria, leading the wyvern into a gently sloping descent. The cloudy mists blocking Bernadetta’s vision of the ground below thin out into nothingness, and she sees the distant form of the undulating hills and murky swamps in the area around Gaspard resolve into specks of many ramshackle battlefield fortifications and banners — all of which fly the emblem of Seiros — growing ever closer.

“Do you think the secret rebel army’s already attacked?” worries Bernadetta, chewing on her lip anxiously as they pass over dangerously close to a particularly hard-fought battleground, littered with slain Knights in their shiny white armour and slain rebels in their dull earthen-hued armour alike. Some of the combatants still live, ferociously battling to their deaths, and Bernadetta wonders if she’ll get to make good on her favour, or if it will end up even mattering...

“I can’t tell, but the battle is definitely going strong,” says Claude. “Maybe — woah!”

Bernadetta shrieks as the wyvern rolls like a barrel in mid-air, and an arrow screams dangerously close past her ear. The quiet thought wondering how she didn’t fall off during the maneuver readily loses itself amidst all the other thoughts that scream something to the effect of _oh, Goddess, I am going to end up a spiky pancake on the ground._

Miraculously, a repeated roll in the air does not manage to dislodge her either — perhaps because her legs are gripping the saddle with such terror-augmented strength that they are effectively paralysed — even as arrows continue trying to remove them from the air.

“Bernadetta!” shrieks Claude as they pass over a swamp that ends abruptly next to a hill. “Can you shoot back at them?”

“What am I shooting?!” shrieks back Bernadetta, only seeing the wildly varying terrain below her as a vague blur dotted with the occasional person-shaped archer trying to turn her into a Bernadetta-shaped pincushion.

“Anything! Except anyone wearing the garb of the Knights!” replies Claude, swerving his wyvern madly to avoid the deluge of death trying to skewer them.

“Claude! There’s far too many of them below!” shouts Dimitri, giving voice to the thoughts that didn’t quite make it past her throat swelling shut with anxiety. “We can’t possibly take them all!”

Claude responds with a non-verbal grunt of frustration and heads straight for the mountains in the distance instead. The arrows become less frequent as the wyvern screeches and jerkily flinches away from them, and Bernadetta almost stops cringing in fear as they fly rapidly away from the heart of the conflict—

—until she sees the troop that reveals itself mere hundreds of paces away from the mountain pass leading to Garreg Mach.

A troop _not_ bearing the standards of the Knights of Seiros.

“I believe,” opines Dimitri darkly. “That we have found our secret rebel army.”

“I think we’d be smart to hold off on the shooting for as long as they haven’t spotted us,” agrees Claude, but Bernadetta doesn’t listen, because from an angle Claude can’t see — looking ahead of him as he is — she spots something that lifts her heart up.

Something tucked between the rows of hills that surround the expanse leading to the Knights’ permanent camp, something rushing with great fury and terrible vengeance towards the rebels who probably still just want to go home — something that makes her realise she would rather _die_ before she lets the enemy into a place she is only just beginning to consider _her_ home.

“Wait,” says Dimitri slowly. “Is that...? Claude!”

Bernadetta grins giddily, feeling her heart fill with an emotion she has rarely felt before and that she is too bone-tired to name. She decides to give it form instead, pulling an arrow from her boot so quickly that it cuts into a bruise on her leg, but she can’t quite find it in herself to care as she grabs a bow from Claude’s saddlebags and fires into the throng of rebels.

 _You were a leaf on the wind,_ she agrees, finally understanding, as she watches her shot unleash chaos in the ranks of the enemy below, just as a mounted host of warriors storms into the rebels from between the gap in the hills behind them. _I’ll watch how you—_

* * *

An arrow from above descends gently into the throng arrayed before Jeralt, followed by an ominous rumble of thunder that marks the beginning to the sonata of slaughter he is about to conduct for his enemies.

The poor, under-armoured sods facing the sudden appearance of the heralds of their doom don’t seem to have anticipated the sheer force with which Jeralt’s augmented mercenary band slams into their ranks. Jeralt has grown rather fond of this Roach, so he thumps her rear mightily to send her whinnying away as he leaps from its back into the fray — and lands crushing the skull of a rebel beneath the heel of his boot with a muffled _crunch_.

One down, ten score to follow.

Beside him, Seteth — having given up the speed of his wyvern for the grounded security of a horse long ago — does the same, though he lands with far more grace and soundlessly shears the heads of four young men from their shoulders with a twirl of his ornate rune-marked spear.

Jeralt _hmphs,_ twisting easily to thrust his lance through a brave young woman that attempts to slam a sword into Seteth’s unprotected back. He lets the weapon stay embedded in her chest as she desperately claws at it, drawing his sword instead and effortlessly smashing through the sword and the guard of a dewy-eyed boy to his side who grits his teeth in challenge.

The boy’s eyes don’t even have the chance to recognise their peril as the next stroke of Jeralt’s blade tears into his throat with a wet _squelch_ and a spurt of dark red blood.

By now, the effortless brutality Jeralt carries himself with — and perhaps something of his centuries-old infamy — has sunk its talons into the hearts of the rebels, who proceed to give him a wide berth. Seteth chases after them with a grim face, seeming to take no joy in the carnage he so easily produces.

_Huh. Never did tell us his story, did he...?_

Barely twenty paces away from him, that pink-haired girl — _Hilda_ , he recalls — who’d found herself trapped by the thing in the chapel, throws a hand axe at a rare armoured rebel with such force that both his armour and his chest cave in from the impact. Blood streams from a cut on Hilda’s shoulder, but the timid blue-haired girl who’d once slammed a door into Jeralt’s face stitches it up quietly from behind her with a glob of cold green magic.

“Uh, Captain Jeralt! I — could use — some help!” calls the orange-haired girl he has been forced to call his apprentice from somewhere in his vicinity, and Jeralt sighs before he marches forward to separate the wizened old man trying to throttle her from her back, and snaps his neck with a twist of his arm.

“Keep an eye on the surroundings behind you,” lectures Jeralt as Leonie duels her remaining opponent — with shoddy form that he will reluctantly have to correct at some point. “You won’t always—” he pauses to whirl in the aforementioned direction and sees a woman trying to stealthily assault him, whose neck he snaps with a mighty boot-heel to her face, “—have the luxury of allies watching your back. Especially if you decide to follow someone as foolhardy as me into the thick of it,” he concludes dryly.

“Yes sir!” replies Leonie, snappily saluting him as she stabs her opponent in the gut, before she scampers off to get herself into even more trouble. With a resigned grumble, Jeralt marches over to stab her downed opponent’s heart, just to be sure — and looks up at a ferocious roar from someone to his right.

_What in the — ah._

Prince Dimitri, leader of the Blue Lions, heir apparent of the Kingdom of Faerghus... and a boy who loses himself to the lust of battle _far_ too easily, is in the process of whirling his lance madly in the centre of a crowd of rebels, and is thus steadily being surrounded by enemy after enemy who would not hesitate to separate his royal neck from his shoulders. _Guess Claude couldn’t keep him away from the fight forever, huh..._

Before Jeralt can go over to protect his wayward student — and maybe scold him for his profound short-sightedness — a deluge of arrows rains over the rebels surrounding him, and Jeralt only catches the barest glimpse of purple hair and a scream of terror as a wyvern rushes past overhead, Claude’s laughter echoing in its wake. _At least he’s sticking around to keep him out of trouble_ , thinks Jeralt, rather pleased by his own cleverness. _Now if only I’d managed to instill such discipline in my daughters... not a thought to spare for their poor old man._

As if to negate his thoughts, another rumble of thunder sounds, and the section of the rebel’s army that had been pinned by his band’s sudden blitz breaks free of their shackles. Jeralt prepares to roll with the tides of war, and dearly hopes — as he usually does, in the face of such terrifying magic — that Byleth can control whatever she’s about to unleash. The rainstorm in that mock-battle had been dangerous enough, but if she truly plans to go further now, like the menacing gongs ringing from the clouds above him suggest?

With creeping dread, Jeralt remembers when Byleth had first tried the spell in secret over the course of several days, reading straight from the pages of the only notebooks of Sitri’s that he _always_ keeps under lock and key. His late wife had been a true genius, and both of her daughters have clearly inherited different facets of it — but Sitri’s magical skill when she had written that book continue to eclipse his understanding, whether that can be attributed to Rhea’s tutelage or Sitri’s own innate grasp of the magic underpinning her very being, he does not know.

But he does know that the ensuing storm of ferocious lightning when Byleth had tried using her mother’s spell had erased an entire forest from the territories of House Hrym, and Jeralt’s mercenaries _still_ avoid the area more than five years later for fear of reprisal from the lords of the land.

“Captain!” roars one of his mercenaries, her hoarse voice breaking through his musings amidst the growing rumbling of the enemy marching back into formation, as Jeralt finishes absently skewering an obstinately agile archer with his blade. “We can’t hold ’em — for too much longer!”

“Steady!” roars back Jeralt, running into the midst of the enemy to back up his band. He would be a fool to falter here — he is the early bird meant to catch the fish, after all. If the fish has any sense of timing at all — _and this fish usually does_ — it won’t be late.

The rumbling under Jeralt’s feet grows louder, and he realises too late that not even the half of the rebels that remain could have made such a thunderous sound. But if they aren’t, then what—

An inhuman, bloodcurdling _scream_ pierces the din of battle as easily as Jeralt’s blade strikes the heads of his enemies from their shoulders, and his eyes grow wide when he sees the beast responsible for it thunder down the passageway his mercenaries are trying to desperately to guard — a beast with four riders clinging to its back.

Jeralt’s jaw drops when he realises Sothis is somehow _controlling_ the beast she rides on, then utters curses he hasn’t felt the need to use in about a century when a dozen more beasts come crashing down behind her in bloodthirsty pursuit.

* * *

_Drum-drum-drum,_ go Hubert’s hands, glowing with eldritch energy and pounding out the rhythm that makes the Crest Stone beat in Byleth’s hand.

 _Drum-drum-drum,_ go the footfalls of the Beast whose heart Sothis carved out and whose arteries wrap around the mockery of a heart in her palm, intertwined with strings of unholy, terrifying magic that makes Byleth want to peel her own skin off in an effort to clean off the filth she feels it staining her with.

“This was a really, _really_ harebrained idea!” screams Sothis, using her sword stuck through the spine of the Crest Beast as a makeshift steering wheel to vaguely influence the direction it goes barrelling down.

“We know!” scream back Byleth, Hubert, and Ferdinand in perfectly coordinated terror.

“Then why didn’t you stop me?!” demands Sothis in an even louder shriek, grunting and heaving as she tries to get the monstrosity to crash into the massive force of rebels underneath them, and not into the treacherously sharp rocks that line the path that leads to said rebels.

“I do not think any of us had any better ideas,” admits Ferdinand after several beats, managing to somehow make even his shouting sound refined. “Perhaps if we had—”

“Hubert,” hisses Byleth, cutting through whatever suggestion Ferdinand might have been about to give. “Stop pulsing it off-beat! You’ll kill the Beast!”

“Forgive me,” snarls Hubert as he adjusts his rhythm, “if I am unpracticed in the art of _necromancy_ via _percussive magic_! How in Fódlan does your demented mind even imagine such concepts?!”

“This isn’t necromancy!” argues Byleth as Ferdinand uses their speed to slice through the rebels with a lance as they pass the battle by, Sothis still articulating noises of frustration as they slam into the ranks of their enemy and the beast continuing its screeching through the chaos. “This is just — really, really advanced Healing! We’re keeping it _alive,_ not bringing it back from the dead!”

“That’s the _same damned_ — gah! I must concentrate on my task, not bother with your inanity,” fumes Hubert, narrowing his eyes at the pulses of magic in his hand. “One, two, three, one, two, three...”

Byleth’s brow twitches when she realises he has been counting in threes instead of fours for some unfathomable reason the _entire_ time. But it _has_ been working for this long, and correcting him now would almost certainly cause the beast to succumb to cardiac arrest — and she would rather not strand them all in the midst of rebels who probably want to kill them and with a pack of ravenous Beasts lunging after them who _definitely_ want to kill them.

“Hubert,” she calls again instead, and carries on when she sees him raise a challenging eyebrow at her, continuing to silently mouth his count. “I need to hand this Crest Stone to you — it’s important, don’t argue! It’ll function for as long as I’m awake, but you need to drive the Stone’s magic yourself with your right hand and tap the rhythm out with your left. It’s just like — like playing an organ!”

“I have not,” growls Hubert, “seen the inside of a church in _fifteen years_. How in the name of the accursed Goddess do you imagine I would know how to play an organ?!”

“Oh,” utters Byleth, not having considered that aspect of her analogy. Still, it’s a tad rude of him to call Sothis that, even if he has no idea that she is actually — _first rule, don’t get sidetracked_ — she shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter! This is likely to save our lives, so you have no choice!”

He grumbles some more, but nods wordlessly at her as Ferdinand pauses in his attacks to watch the changeover in apprehension.

Steady, steady — “Sorry! It’s just _really_ hard to keep it in line!” shouts Sothis from near the beast’s neck — steady... there!

Byleth eyes Hubert nervously as he shoves a spike of magic into his right palm, dripping with blood and other unnameable fluids, while his left continues drumming out the life-guiding pulse he has maintained steadily for many minutes now. For an instant, she almost thinks the magic is too strong, and the beast’s redoubled screech seems to lend credence to her theory — but then it miraculously settles back down and she breathes a sigh of relief. _Now what was I — oh, right._

“Sothis!” calls Byleth, shimmying forward along the beast’s ridged spine to stand closer to her sister. “I think it’s ready!”

Sothis looks up at the dark sky, and then back to Byleth with a look of undisguised concern. “Are you sure about this?” she asks, gulping in visible nervousness. “I know I was the one who asked — but you haven’t used this spell for five years, and last time wasn’t exactly...”

Byleth shakes her head confidently. “I figured it out, just like I told Dad,” she promises. “The only danger is that I’ll collapse from magical exhaustion, because — it doesn’t matter, it’ll take too long to explain. Will you catch me?”

“What do you take me for?” asks her twin, sounding insulted. “And that still doesn’t sound like an acceptable amount of danger to me, but—” she glances back at the army of Beasts still following them and swallows nervously again, “—this _is_ a bit of an unacceptable situation.”

“We really did hook more than we could reel in this time,” agrees Byleth, moving so she can crouch down in front of Sothis where she can easily be caught if the worst happens. “Ready?”

“Always,” claims Sothis with a grunt of effort. Byleth closes her eyes, feeling out the sigils she painstakingly carved into the sky before the sun had risen in the morning. They resonate with a heady _thrum_ when she finds them, vibrating in time with the ones painted onto her arm and covered by her vambrace. No half-formed rain greets her in the skies this time, only the swirling of misty dark clouds spinning furiously around themselves and sparking constantly with each cycle.

Byleth has found the source of energy, so now all she must do is finish the conduit. She opens her eyes, and looks back at one of the packs of Beasts following them. They remain at a steady distance, neither gaining or trailing — but everything is constantly moving, which makes this so much harder than it needs to be — _no, focus. You are your mother’s daughter — if she could do this, so can you._

The speed at which a bolt of Thunder can fall from the sky is limited greatly, Byleth knows, by the prowess of its spellcaster. Byleth is hardly an amateur, but the limitation is irrelevant to her because she does not intend to call Thunder... from the _sky._

She heaves with all her might and rips it up from the ground instead.

The conduit closes, and Byleth doubles over in sudden exhaustion. Before she can do much more than register the incredible drain on her magic she feels, the resulting arc of lightning _sears_ her retinas, and its accompanying thunder shreds her eardrums apart.

She closes her eyes with a pained grimace, decides to gamble on Hubert’s rhythm somehow sustaining itself long enough, and mentally maps the location of the other pack of Beasts before pulling another bolt of Thunder up from where she thinks they might be.

This is where it had gone wrong last time — Byleth had tried to let the Thunder sustain itself, making the conduit grow unto itself in a loop that could feed on the vast reservoir of energy she’d fastidiously gathered in the clouds above. It had worked, of course — worked too well, because she had underestimated just how much fury a single storm cloud could contain, let alone multiple... and had subsequently been barred from setting foot in the lands of House Hrym every since.

This time... she opens her eyes, and gasps in dismay when she sees that while her two bolts have more than halved the population of their pursuers, the rest of the Beasts still remain snarling after them, wading easily through the trail of destruction left by the Beast being guided by Sothis. Byleth has enough energy left for another bolt, but after that she will certainly collapse — and the Beasts are now spread too thinly to wipe out with a single strike. This time, she had hoped to avoid repeating history... but it seems she is left with little choice.

 _I just hope it’s less —_ something rings in her ears, but she doesn’t look up from her hands, frowning in concentration as she prepares her final act — _earth-shatteringly destructive, this time._

The ringing, however, is insistent, and she swats at her ears in annoyance. She really doesn’t have the time to—

Something smacks her in the back of the head, and she regains some auditory function.

“...leth! BYLETH!” Sothis is screaming at her, ears bleeding. “We — have — reinforcements! I know that look on your face — don’t do anything stupid!”

“What?” blinks Byleth, a spot of phantom lightning still dancing in her vision as she looks up at her sister. “Where?”

Sothis jerks her head wordlessly to point at a hillock to their side as she leads their commandeered Beast to continue rampaging through the enemy, and Byleth sees the standard of the Knights of Seiros peek over the terrain gently, as if rising from the depths of an abyss. A wyvern rises suddenly above it, one of its riders bearing a glowing, blood-orange branched claymore, and the other throwing a ball of Luna in the direction of the Beasts that still remain.

Byleth sighs in contentment, closes her eyes, and manages to use the last of her energy to tear a final, unsustained bolt of Thunder from the ground — her exhaustion finally catches up to her as she does, and the abomination that has carried them to victory finally succumbs to its wounds with a shuddering groan and grinds to a halt on the bloodied battleground.

The shadow encroaching at the edge of her vision lulls Byleth into slumber, and the last thing she registers is the panicked visage of Sothis catching her — before her mind yields to the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy word count, Batman! This chapter was really, really, _really_ hard to write because I chose to do a more flowing continuous POV-switch structure, which also takes up far more words than strictly necessary in addition to just being... difficult to work with. I doubt this structure will appear as-is in this story again, but I don't regret it because I learned a good amount and it's kinda neat - though I probably should have picked an easier story-point to do it with, instead of an already really convoluted ongoing battle-adjacent sequence of events rife with foreshadowing (which also probably has a plot hole left somewhere as a result, although I tried pretty hard to make sure it didn't)
> 
> Bernadetta. Yes, sorry.
> 
> A note on dimiclaude - I will explore them with more nuance and in more depth (with actual POVs) in the future, cuz these cuties they deserve better, but also keep in mind that Bernadetta is the textbook definition of an unreliable narrator, so... maybe they weren't as suddenly lovey-dovey as depicted because who knows what meaning Bernie has ascribed to their glances in her fervid state?
> 
> The shoved-in Firefly reference - look, I still haven't gotten over that line, okay. It's been more than a decade since I heard it and I still tear up, so everyone else will suffer with me because misery loves company :)
> 
> The thing the last scene references is... special, so a virtual cookie goes to anyone who guesses where I lifted it from ;)


	18. The Flame in the Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the space between the dark and the light, a flame dances — not alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oops I was buried in work for far too long again, but I attempted some meager catch-up efforts in the unplanned hiatus, so... hopefully we're back to the one-week update thing? maybe?
> 
> here, though, is where I finally give my poor readers their reward for bearing with the past 40k words of pure trauma :)

“And so,” finishes Hubert grimly, “not a trace of the ones you put down was found by the armies of the Church — or by Lonato’s own militia. All they found were bloodstains on the walls and the floors of the castle, but no bodies nearby which might have made them.”

Edelgard sinks low into her chair, grinds the heels of her palms into her eyes, and lets out a miserably frustrated sigh.

“Just when I thought I might have managed to expose them...” she groans, before raising her head and staring at Hubert balefully. “It must be true, then. I wouldn’t trust the Knights of Seiros to report on the colour of the sky correctly, let alone something like this... but Lonato’s militia wouldn’t lie about such a thing. Not to me, and so not to you.”

“Quite,” concurs Hubert. He broods silently for a moment — before suddenly rumbling out a dark chuckle.

“What?” wonders Edelgard.

“Perhaps you should have made more of a mess, my Lady,” says Hubert, smirking viciously. “Whoever cleaned up after you might not have succeeded so quickly, then.”

Edelgard huffs in amusement.

“I wasn’t thinking terribly clearly, seeing as how my focus was mostly on escaping my imprisonment,” she replies dryly, staring at her gloved hands. “I just hadn’t expected our begrudging allies to reveal themselves and then turn on me so... suddenly. No threats, no warnings... it’s as if their entire carefully crafted plan became an afterthought in the span of mere weeks.”

“If I may,” hedges Hubert. “Whatever the cause of their betrayal, I believe from the deepest pit of my heart that you are far better off without those abominations haunting your every step. True, an alliance with them might have given our cause a better chance of success, but we may find more... amiable friends in unexpected places, now.”

“How unlike you to sound so soft, Hubert,” teases Edelgard gently, though she barely feels the levity she injects carefully into her voice. She must not allow Hubert to guess at her apprehensions—

“How unlike you to sound so uncertain, Lady Edelgard,” shoots back Hubert, guessing instantly. _Drat. He knows me too well for that._ “As I recall, you were quick to admonish me for not having enough faith in our newest allies mere days ago.”

“Ah — well, it’s just that... nevermind. Ha. I suppose the moment before one leaps is always clouded with the most doubt,” says Edelgard, adopting her most sagacious tone.

“Reality is but a mirror for your words, my Lady,” intones Hubert solemnly, making Edelgard roll her eyes. She supposes she should be thankful he is always easy enough to assuage, but—

“Must you always be so frivolous with your praise?” grumbles Edelgard, making Hubert chuckle lightly.

“Forgive me,” he replies. “I had my doubts about the sheer... ram-headed insistence with which you continue chasing after that woman, so I suppose I find it ironic that you are the one floundering now — especially when I have just begun to come to terms with your... _peculiar_ taste.”

“Chasing after—!” exclaims Edelgard, breaking off with a blush. “Hubert. I’m hardly _chasing_ anyone.”

“You’re right, of course. You’re the one being chased,” amends Hubert with a smirk, making her blush darken. “But if any... _problems_ have arisen, you may simply say the word and I will see to her myself.”

“You will do no such thing,” forbids Edelgard sternly. “And there are no problems,” she adds insistently. “But if there were, I’d still forbid you from doing something about them. But there aren’t, of course, and so you have no reason to worry anyway.”

“You could not sound any more like Bernadetta if you’d tried,” says Hubert, his smirk widening as Edelgard flushes darker in embarrassment. “But so be it. Though it rankles at me to do so, I will leave the matter in your capable hands.”

“Thank you,” accepts Edelgard gratefully. “Is there anything else I might have missed while I was recovering?”

Hubert mulls it over briefly, then shakes his head. But he does so hesitantly, as if there is something he is unsure about. Edelgard raises a brow, so he slowly elaborates, “There were some... inconsistencies, shall we say, during the course of that battle. That dead forest, in particular... but I have troublingly little to go on, so I cannot form any sort of conclusion, let alone a definitive one. I will, as always, let you know as soon as I’ve discovered something new.”

“Thank you, Hubert,” echoes Edelgard again. “And... _thank you_.”

Hubert gives a rare, sincere smile at the unstated meaning of her gratitude, sketches a perfect bow, and leaves her room silently.

Edelgard stares at her door for a long moment before she rises slowly from her chair. She can no longer feel the twinge in her chest every time she moves, but Professor Manuela had stressed — with an appropriately dangerous look in her eye — that she be _extremely_ mindful of her healed wound for at least a few days, so Edelgard tries to be as deliberate with her motions as she can. She eyes her mattress consideringly... before she gently sinks into it, grabs her pillow to bury her face in, and lets out a soft scream of frustration.

_Hopefully Hubert didn’t stick around the hallway long enough to hear that._

A battle hard-fought, apparently, and she’d been stuck in a bed ponderously poring over her own miserable existence for its entire duration. She will need allies, now, too; without Thales and his cronies to play the field for her, it—

_It’s not like I’ve done a stellar job of convincing everyone of my strength by getting captured and then straining myself far beyond what I thought myself capable of. Not to mention..._

“How, in the name of the accursed Goddess, am I meant to...” mutters Edelgard out loud, raising her head to glare at the vase of crimson carnations on her nightstand. A gloved hand slowly reaches out to them and tenderly grasps their stems — wide, unseeing purple eyes imagine a slender neck wrapped around her fingers instead of leafy green stalks, and when Edelgard imagines closing her fingers softly and looking into bright green eyes as she does, she thinks of the betrayal they would surely stare back at her with—

“I can’t even harm the flowers she gave me,” growls Edelgard to herself, unclasping her trembling hand to reveal the unhurt stems. She sighs, letting her hand fall off her nightstand to dangle off the edge of her bed listlessly. _Wish I knew how to turn into a dragon,_ Sothis had said. Not wishing that she _could_ in the first place, but wishing that she _knew how to_.

 _She has rounded ears, so I thought she was as human as we come,_ considers Edelgard with a sinking feeling in her gut that tells her she has miscalculated awfully, _but her eyes and hair are exactly the same shade as Rhea’s, and there’s something about the shapes of their faces... they could easily be related based on their features alone, and a mercenary gaining entrance to the Officer’s Academy, no matter how talented—_

Edelgard jumps off her bed, and puts her shoes on. _I need to somehow find out what she meant by her words. Hubert was right. I need to know if she is truly with my enemy — or with me. And if I’ve burned my bridges of alliance with Those Who Slither, only to now learn that the ones I burned them for happened to be my enemies all along..._

She levies another troubled look at the flowers on her nightstand, leaving her thought unfinished.

“How frustrating,” sniffs Edelgard in empty annoyance, knowing the most restful sleep of her life had been in the arms of the green-haired woman who she might now have to kill. “I don’t think I could hate you properly even if I wanted to...”

She paces the tight confines of her room. If only she could ask Sothis about it directly — no, the woman is _highly_ intelligent and much more guarded than her open demeanour would suggest, and would likely not give her a straight answer. But Edelgard is not blind; she knows the tender and occasionally mischievous gaze Sothis eyes her with is not borne of simple kindness. There is deeper feeling, there; the prey knows when it is being hunted, after all...

Edelgard pauses in her pacing, her very being infuriated at the stray thought that she suddenly connects to Hubert’s words.

_Prey... is that all I’ve let myself be the entire time? I am Edelgard von Hresvelg! My heart is nobody’s... prey!_

She huffs in affront. How _dare_ Sothis?

“I’ll show her,” mutters Edelgard waspishly, throwing her coat on and storming angrily out of her room, care for her wound forgotten. “She wants to chase me? I’ll chase her _right back_.”

She continues muttering to herself all the way to the training grounds, the faint light of the waxing crescent moon illuminating her path. As much as she burns to chase her housemate down and shake an answer out of her, Sothis had — last Edelgard had heard — been part of the assignment to clear out some firewood from the woods just outside Garreg Mach, in preparation for the upcoming winter. Edelgard has volunteered for the logging assignment previously in a bid to improve her proficiency with an axe, and knows that the gathering and transport of the logs, which is part of the assignment, usually lasts well into the early hours of the next morning.

 _Enough time,_ thinks Edelgard grimly, sliding the doors of the training grounds open with faintly trembling hands, _for me to work off some steam—_

“O-oh. Hilda,” pants a high, breathless voice, and Edelgard freezes. _That sounds — but no, this is the training—_

“Almost there! Good girl,” croons another, lower voice, which must surely belong to Hilda. “You can take one more, can’t you, Marianne? For me?”

“I — _ah_! I’m — I’m really not sure if I can,” replies the first voice, panting harder, and Edelgard’s jaw drops as she flushes brightly, still frozen in place. What in Fódlan are they — since when are Hilda and _Marianne_ , of all people — and why _in the training grounds, of all places?!_

“I believe in you,” declare Hilda’s confidently sugary tones. “You’re tougher than you look, Marianne!”

“Please stop saying such — embarrassing things, Hilda,” pleads Marianne, grunting in exertion. Edelgard stands flabbergasted for another long moment before she shakes herself out of it, brimming with righteous indignation. Such indecency in _public—_! Still, she can’t quite bring herself to announce her presence, even as she softly steps towards the source of the noise—

“You’re so close!” praises Hilda, and Edelgard almost loses her nerve as she steps out into the open training square to see Marianne lying flat on the ground, with Hilda hovering above her—

— _oh._

Hilda, _fully dressed_ in training clothes, is keeping a cautious hand on the bar laden with training weights that Marianne, _also fully dressed,_ holds with trembling arms extended fully above her chest.

“One hundred,” pants Marianne, her breath coming out in short, ragged gasps. “I — I don’t think I can move my arms any more.”

“I’ve got you!” exclaims Hilda, easily lifting the bar and setting it aside, as Marianne’s arms collapse next to her with muffled _thumps_.

“Um,” says Edelgard, clearing her throat loudly only after she feels she has castigated herself for her assumption long enough. _Of course they were training. These are the training grounds, after all, and they’re just helping each other out, why in the world did I ever think—_

“Huh? Oh, Edelgard! Fancy seeing you finally freed from Professor Manuela’s clutches,” cheers Hilda. “How are you feeling now?”

“Much better, thank you,” replies Edelgard graciously, inordinately thankful that her still flushed face is not easily visible in the dim light of the newly born moon. “Oh, you needn’t trouble yourself, Marianne,” she adds hastily as Marianne struggles to sit up, “In fact, I wanted to thank you for your remarkable efforts in the situation that happened at the Monastery while I was — indisposed. I’ve heard you were instrumental in freeing everyone trapped that day... I’m glad to see you growing so strong.”

“Um — thank you,” replies Marianne haltingly. “But I’m not sure that I deserve any of the thanks, or the praise...”

“Nonsense!” gushes Hilda, helping the blue-haired woman to her feet and ruffling her already-rumpled hair as she does. “Don’t listen to her, Edelgard. She was absolutely brilliant! Honestly, I’d probably still be stuck in that dratted cathedral if not for her.”

“That must have been quite frightening,” commiserates Edelgard. “To be caught so helplessly like that...”

“Gotta say, it was pretty freaky at first,” admits Hilda. “Nothing compared to what it must have been like for you, though, because having good old Seteth in there with me meant it just got horribly annoying after a while. The man practically exudes just the most... frustrating aura of calm, you know?”

“Hah. I know what you mean,” agrees Edelgard, thinking of the green-haired woman plaguing her thoughts that gives off a _very_ similar sense of frustrating calm.

“Well, we’re off now,” says Hilda, waving cheerily as she helps keep Marianne steady on her feet. “Gotta give those poor muscles time to heal up!”

“Take care,” replies Edelgard, waving back with a smile. She is about to walk towards the weapon racks before Marianne calls out to her shyly.

“Um, Edelgard,” says Marianne. Edelgard turns back in surprise, and Marianne continues after a nervous beat, “I-I’m really glad you’re okay. Um. You — you inspire a lot of people. We were, um, we weren’t really sure if you’d be okay, but when we found out you’d broken out of that castle and rescued Ashe’s siblings on your own... it, um... I know it didn’t really surprise me, because everyone knows how hard you always work. And, um.”

Edelgard blinks, speechless, and tries to come up with something to say when it appears Marianne has momentarily lost her nerve, but then she pipes up again, “I — I guess I’m trying to say that maybe you don’t always have to work so hard, and you can take time off and nobody will think that you’re, um, not working hard. But i-it’s okay if you do! I just — sometimes it’s good to... step back.”

Marianne’s embarrassed blush is visible even in the scarcely lit night, as is the sharp curve of Hilda’s beaming smile as she grins, first at Marianne and then at Edelgard, patting Marianne on the shoulder proudly for her entirely unexpected speech.

“I don’t really have anything to add that she didn’t already say, but yeah, don’t burn yourself out!” adds Hilda. “I’m preeetty sure more than half of both the Deer and the Lions wish you were our house leader instead of the unfortunate louts we got saddled with... and it’d be a real shame if a gal as cute _and_ industrious as you ended up working herself to death. So remember, if you ever wanna have a nice, relaxing, lazy cup of tea to cut back with or something, I’m your girl! Er, as long as you make the tea, that is.”

“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind,” rasps Edelgard, taken truly off guard. Her throat feels like it has decided to close shop permanently, with the difficulty she is currently having giving voice to her thoughts. She attempts to clear it futilely, and continues. “I — thank you both, truly. I’m very touched that you think so highly of me. I never really imagined... well,” Edelgard chuckles ruefully, “if me being here at this hour worried you, please don’t let it. I was honestly just going to de-stress by hitting some training dummies without much thought given to training, or working, or anything of the sort.”

Hilda shudders comically. “That sounds like so much _effort_... but whatever makes you happy, I guess,” she says dubiously. “Well, see you around!”

“See you,” echoes Marianne. Edelgard repeats the sentiment, and watches them head off — hand in hand, surprisingly — with a thoughtful frown on her face and a disbelieving feeling in her heart.

_I don’t think I’ve heard that girl say more than five words to anyone at the Monastery since I arrived here, and yet to say all that to me just because she was worried..._

She shakes her head, blowing at the strands of bone white hair that fly into her face at the motion. The sudden vote of confidence has thrown her mind into even more of a tizzy than it had already been, and her nerves almost hum with excess energy as she picks up a hefty, dulled training sword, then loosely ties her hair back into a tail so it can stay out of her way.

Edelgard breathes in deep, counts to three, and begins her dance on the exhale.

A descending strike, angled left. Her imaginary opponent deflects, and she uses the fury of her strike to step to the side before following with an ascending strike—

—two steps to the left, a side swipe—

—a roll, feinting forwards but angled slightly to the right so she can parry the attack from the left—

—push her advantage, but relent at the last moment to lull her imaginary opponent into a false sense of security, before she thrusts with a stab that leaves her partially open, but the risk is well calculated—

—her opponent is left with no time to react to her advance and she ends her charade with a subsequent slash across where their neck might have been.

Edelgard sets her blade down and slumps against one of the pillars, panting, and brushes back the strands that have escaped from her ponytail to stick to her forehead. A glance at the slow-burning lanterns in the shadows of the training yard’s entrance reveals, to her surprise, that at least an hour has elapsed since she’d started moving. She closes her eyes, feeling her arms burn with exertion and the sweat stick to her back and her neck. What little is exposed of her skin feels soothingly cool in the light breeze that swirls over the open training area, and yet she feels... unsatisfied.

An imaginary opponent does _not_ make for a satisfying release of stress.

But she’s seen Caspar get in trouble for destroying training dummies more times than she cares to remember, so emulating him now would be a poor strategy at best... especially if it leads to Professor Manuela finding out about her little escapade—

A shadow falls over her, and Edelgard looks up at where the waxing crescent moon had been, only to find the head of a tall, lithe woman blocking it — a head full of bright green hair that falls in waves and frames a pair of bright, dangerous green eyes.

“Edelgard,” intones Archbishop Rhea, voice pitched somewhat unusually. Edelgard’s hand twitches of its own volition towards the blade she’d so carelessly discarded before she’d sat down to take a break. The blade is dull, yes, but at the right angle and with the correct application of force—

“I’m assuming Professor Manuela doesn’t know about you being here,” continues Rhea dryly. Edelgard blinks, hackles raising even higher at the overly familiar tone the woman adopts. _Is this her way of blackmail— wait._

Rhea tilts her head slightly in askance, letting a sliver of moonlight creep over her temple, and Edelgard spots the lightest of thin scars at the edge of her brow. A very familiar scar... unbidden, the memory of waking up to nothing but bright green hair in her face and the concerned gaze of a woman with bright green eyes hits Edelgard. She remembers the lightest of thin scars just above that concerned gaze, and the tension drains out of her like the breaking of a dam.

“Sothis,” breathes Edelgard in heartfelt relief. _Not Rhea._

Then the tension creeps back up her shoulders again, because she doesn’t quite know yet if, for the purposes of the blood she needs to spill, the two are one and the same.

“Now I’m wondering who you thought I was,” replies Sothis in bemusement, stepping back and letting the faint brightness of the night sky shine on Edelgard’s face again. “You seem a bit... hm. Are you sure you shouldn’t still be resting?”

Edelgard stares tensely at her for a moment longer, but then the stiffness falls away again from her in a sudden rush. Sothis may look so suspiciously similar to Rhea, but—

_Her concern for me has always been heartfelt. I — I just know it has._

“If I spend another moment sitting around and doing nothing, I promise I’ll go mad,” swears Edelgard, eliciting a laugh out of Sothis. “And — lately I haven’t been able to sleep too well, so that idea doesn’t hold much appeal for me, either,” she adds in a smaller voice, hating herself for her perpetual weakness.

“Oh,” says Sothis, though the look of pity Edelgard had been half-dreading doesn’t flit across her face, and she feels a faint rush of gratitude at being spared that. But a small smirk on Sothis’ face renews her apprehension, and Sothis continues, “I don’t suppose that’s your way of proposing I sleep with you again? Purely to help you get a good night’s rest, of course.”

Despite her damnedest efforts, a blush escapes and paints Edelgard’s ears a dull red. But she rises quickly to hide it, grabbing her training sword as she does so — something about the forbidding darkness of the almost-moonless night fills Edelgard with a confidence she has not often felt, and her recent frustration at her fruitless situation boils over into a retort she hadn’t thought herself capable of making.

“Defeat me in a spar and I’ll consider letting you,” challenges Edelgard, keeping her voice perfectly even as she does. She almost lets out a small smile of victory when Sothis blinks and her cheeks darken slightly, seeming to be taken aback at the unexpected rejoinder.

_Child of the Goddess or no, I’m not the helpless prey you imagined me to be._

But her triumph is short-lived, because Sothis snakes a small band out of her pocket to tie her hair into a bun in a single, smooth, and supremely skilled motion, then turns to walk towards the weapon rack to draw another training sword from it.

Edelgard stays where she is even as Sothis strides confidently into the centre of the arena. “Am I to spar with your shadow?” queries Sothis wryly, stretching and swinging her blade experimentally.

“We didn’t agree on what would happen if _I_ won,” replies Edelgard.

“And here I thought I was to be your reward... how cruel of you to toy with my poor heart so, Edelgard,” says Sothis in a wounded tone, raising a hand to her heart.

Edelgard snorts. “I wonder what gave you such a lofty idea of yourself,” she retorts with a shake of her head, pretending to be disappointed as she walks slowly to the centre of the arena.

“It certainly couldn’t have been the wealth of praise heaped onto me by a certain lilac-eyed house leader of mine, no,” replies Sothis in a mockingly ponderous tone, striking straight at Edelgard’s core before they have even begun to spar.

_She’s good..._

“That was hardly — you’ve read too much into my intentions, I assure you,” insists Edelgard, though she is certain her burning face gives her away. _Why did I have to be born someone who blushes so easily?_ “I simply like to give credit where it is due, nothing more.”

“My disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined,” deadpans Sothis. “Tell me, oh fair-intentioned lady, are we going to stand here re-enacting the various flirtatious conversations we’ve had over the past month or so, or are you going to name your reward so we can actually begin?”

Edelgard fears for half a moment that her Crest of Flames has inadvertently activated, because surely the heat that starts radiating from her face and then travels all the way down her neck is _not_ natural. It makes her realise, to her great shame, that she requires _far_ more practice before she can reverse the roles to become the hunter and not the hunted in this deadly game they play.

But never let it be said the Emperor who will slay the Goddess backs down from her challenges, so Edelgard clears her throat, and says, “If I win, you must promise to answer — truthfully, you’ll swear it — any one question I ask you.”

Sothis’ smile freezes on her face.

“Or is that too much to ask for?” continues Edelgard coyly, hoping to goad the other woman into accepting. But Sothis only shakes her head, finally unfreezing, before she lets out a mirthless chuckle.

“You’re playing quite the dangerous game,” warns Sothis lowly, staring at Edelgard with an intensity of emotion she is entirely unprepared for, given the woman’s previous levity. Even so...

“Someone told me dangerous games are a lot more fun when you don’t play them alone,” says Edelgard sardonically, drawing out another dark chuckle from Sothis.

“I know exactly what you’re going to ask,” remarks Sothis lightly, making Edelgard blink and the tension in her spine ratchet higher. “So I’ll agree to your reward — on one condition.”

“Name it,” says Edelgard nervously, wondering what she will find herself agreeing to.

“You’ll tell me why you asked whatever you’ll ask me,” says Sothis firmly. “The truth of it. If we are to be honest... I’d rather it go both ways.”

Edelgard’s mind reels in apprehension. The entire truth, she knows, would have her revealing almost every last one of her secrets — certainly the most important ones. Are they worth the question she needs to ask?

Hubert would tell her to say no.

She _should_ say no.

But her mouth moves before her brain can engage, and she finds herself uttering a traitorous, “Yes.”

Sothis smiles again, though there is something more... gentle about this one. “I wasn’t sure you’d agree,” she admits. “But I’m happy you did.”

“I... think I am, too,” realises Edelgard, surprised at herself. Perhaps Professor Manuela was right; perhaps she _has_ become unusually forthcoming with her emotions...

“Well, then,” breathes Sothis, dropping into a stance Edelgard does not recognise. She feels a thrill shoot up her shoulders — despite this, despite everything that hinges on her victory here, and despite what is at stake even if she wins?

Watching Sothis fight is always indescribably _beautiful_ , and being close enough to actually participate in a fight with her feels like a gift that is worth its weight in gold.

Edelgard breathes in deep, counts to three, and begins her dance on the exhale.

A descending strike, angled left. But her opponent is not imaginary, and instead of deflecting Sothis spins to dodge, then thrusts her sword at Edelgard’s unprotected side. Edelgard stumbles out of the way with a surprised grunt, but Sothis follows her with a sharp, precisely angled upward slash that Edelgard barely manages to block — reminding her that she no longer dances alone.

Sothis takes two quick steps forward to counter Edelgard’s two steps to her left, and strikes at her abdomen with a reserved motion — safe to guard against, meant as a mere probe against Edelgard’s defenses. Edelgard easily deflects the strike, but chooses to not capitalise with the previously practiced swipe to her side. But Sothis does not seem to intend to let her moderate the pace of their battle, and seamlessly switches her grip to unleash a graceful slash of her blade that barely whizzes past the top of Edelgard’s head as she ducks underneath it.

A roll carries Edelgard forward and back into a fighting stance, but her opponent does not buy her feint, choosing instead to meet her attack head-on from the right with an intricate slash that almost hurts the eyes to follow. Edelgard still manages to parry the surprisingly strong force behind the attack, somehow, and tries to push her advantage — only to be sorely disappointed when Sothis moves her arm in another _dizzyingly_ fast motion that leaves it a blur as she smashes her sword into Edelgard’s defenses repeatedly in a suddenly brutal one-two-one-two staccato rhythm that forces Edelgard several steps back. But Edelgard knows this part of the dance — has previously used it to great effect herself, even — so she pretends briefly to be overwhelmed by the upbeat of Sothis’ strike, only to use all of her considerable strength to strike against the downbeat.

Sothis’ eyes widen as she almost loses her grip on her sword, but Edelgard is too absorbed by how utterly thrilling the battle is to care about having elicited a reaction, and by how close her victory is — she realises that her opponent’s skill leaves her no room for a well-calculated risky stab, so instead she steps forward deftly to decisively twist Sothis’ floundering blade out of her grip before slamming her against a pillar, dulled training sword held against her neck.

“I,” pants Edelgard, grinning viciously at the rush that makes her blood sing, “ _win_.”

Sothis grins back at her, laughing even though she is still pinned firmly against the pillar. “You win,” she agrees, panting. “ _Wow._ I don’t think I’ve fought like that in a while...”

“For all your prodigious strength,” teases Edelgard with a smirk, “you certainly folded like a deck of cards when I hit back when you weren’t expecting it.”

“Maybe I let you win,” suggests Sothis, a coy smile playing at her lips. “Maybe I just wanted to answer your question, and to get mine answered in return.”

Edelgard chuckles throatily, resting her forehead gently against Sothis’. “I doubt that,” she retorts, gently scraping the dulled blade against Sothis’ throat. “You seem far too helpless right now for that to be true.”

“Helpless—” Sothis suddenly reaches up to curl a tight fist over Edelgard’s sword-wielding hand, and at the same time slides a leg behind her knee and makes it fold inward, but before Edelgard can tumble down she whirls and in one fell motion, reverses their positions, “—is just an eight-letter word.”

Edelgard swallows roughly, unexpectedly and completely at her opponent’s mercy. With their faces this close, she can make out almost every fleck in Sothis’ darker-than-usual irises, and it is _almost_ enough to make her disregard the furious pounding of her heart that strikes her ribcage in anger to tell her how much it _hates_ losing control.

Almost.

Borrowing Sothis’ tactic, Edelgard slides her foot between her captor’s, and tries to force Sothis to lose her balance by pushing her feet apart — it works, but now Edelgard’s own leg is extended uncomfortably far from her own body, and Sothis still has her sword hand trapped in her own, so Edelgard pushes her other leg against the pillar—

—and deposits them both into a pile on the ground, one of top of the other. Edelgard’s hair tumbles loose from the tail she had haphazardly twisted it into, and smacks into Sothis’ face with a wet _slap_ as the green-haired woman sputters and tries to remove the offending strands that have snaked their way into her mouth.

Edelgard collapses into breathless giggles, only laughing harder when Sothis squeaks as Edelgard inadvertently shoves a steadying palm into her torso and drives the breath out of her. Sothis makes a mock-offended face before she gives in to her own mirth, laughing even as Edelgard gulps in lungfuls of air and chokes them out into Sothis’ shoulder in shaky gasps of glee.

 _I can’t remember the last time I laughed this hard,_ she hears herself think through the hysterical giggles that she can’t seem to stop.

Eventually, their shared laughter dies down, and Sothis gently pushes Edelgard off her, who rolls almost languidly to lie beside her; their hands remain clasped with the sword trapped in between. The two stay like that for a long moment, splayed out on the training ground carelessly — the one with the grand ambition, and the one who would help the other grasp it. Edelgard stares up at the night sky with its nascent moon and shimmering stars, wondering which of them she is.

She wonders if she stretches out their clasped hands _just so_ , she could reach far enough to be both.

“I don’t want to lose this,” admits Edelgard with a small voice into a long, blissful silence, closing her eyes and seeing her fear fan the flames of her being into a wildfire. “I fear that if I ask my question, I will.”

Sothis hums lightly, gently stroking Edelgard’s hand with the pad of her thumb. “What do you expect to learn about me that you think will make you hate me that much?” she queries softly.

“I don’t think I could ever _hate_ you, whatever I learn,” replies Edelgard, smiling ruefully with her eyes still shut. “I’ve come to accept that. But — I told you what happened to my siblings. I will make a world where no other children ever suffer like that again... whoever I have to tear through to do it.”

Sothis shifts slightly next to her, and says softly, “And you think I would be against such a thing? What a low opinion you must have of me...”

Edelgard’s eyes slowly open, and she turns her head to find Sothis’ barely visible face propped up on an elbow, eyeing her with a look of bemusement mixed with concern.

“I don’t...” says Edelgard slowly, deciding to plunge headfirst into the darkness, “but if you are a child of the Goddess like your words implied, aren’t you part of what made the world like this to begin with?”

Sothis’ jaw drops open as she works her mouth around an answer — and then seems to give up on it, because she turns to gently _thunk_ her forehead against the ground.

“That’s why you...” mumbles Sothis in dawning realisation, “and why he said — and what she meant by... oh. Oh, dear. Oh, no...”

“Your reaction gives away enough,” says Edelgard, a tide of disappointment and heartache threatening to drown her. _What had I expected?_ “It seems that I’ll need to—”

The woman that still holds her hand so gently sits up in a flail of limbs and places a palm over Edelgard’s mouth before she can continue.

“Wait, wait, wait,” urges Sothis insistently, eyes wide. “Before you kill me with your soul-wrenching look of heartbreak because you just jumped to a _massive_ conclusion — wait. Hear me out, please.”

Edelgard waits with bated breath as she lies on the ground, nodding jerkily at Sothis to explain.

“Okay, well, first — I am _not_ a child of the Goddess,” says Sothis, removing her hand. “You have my word on that. And before I tell you why I look like I might be one, I swear to you — with _everything_ I am — that I will help you make that world a reality. Nothing I say will change that. Do you — do you believe me?”

“I don’t imagine I have much of a choice, right now,” replies Edelgard wryly. “But I suppose if I get one... I’ll choose to believe you.”

“ _Thank you,_ ” mumbles Sothis with truly heartfelt emotion, and raises Edelgard’s hand — that has the training sword still clasped in it — to her mouth, pressing her lips firmly to the silken glove that covers it.

The gesture _still_ manages to fluster Edelgard, despite the ever-confusing vortex of conflicting feelings in her mind, and she drops the training sword with a sharp _clang_ onto the ground between them.

“I — okay, well, I knew _nothing_ of this when I first met you and we came to Garreg Mach,” begins Sothis, looking at Edelgard with unusual nervousness. “But it turns out — and I have trouble believing this sometimes, myself — that the reason I resemble the lost Goddess of Fódlan is... um. Imightjustalittlebutreallyawholelotbeher.”

“Come again?” says Edelgard, furrowing her brow as she sits up. “I didn’t quite catch that.”

“I am the Goddess herself, or at least a... reincarnation of her. Not her child,” reiterates Sothis, slower. “It... sounds ridiculous when I say it like that. But there’s a lot to the story, and so many details add up so _perfectly_ that—”

_What._

“You’ve... been part of the group controlling Fódlan in secret for more than a thousand years?” queries Edelgard dubiously, somehow managing to unstick her tongue. “I know I said I would believe you, but...”

“Ah,” hedges Sothis, seeming surprised, before she shakes her head. “No. That would have been my daughter.”

Edelgard stares at her, wondering if she has lost her mind.

“Byleth and I were born twenty-one years ago to Jeralt and Sitri Eisner, on the fifteenth day of the Blue Sea Moon,” elaborates Sothis. “I had nothing to do with, well, _anything_ before that. _But_ , and this is the important part: my mother was apparently at least _twice_ as insane as Byleth is — on her best day. And she must have been having a really bad day because she did something that — well, actually, nobody knows what she did. But here I am, a Goddess reborn without the memories of one.”

Edelgard rubs her eyes in confusion, trying to make sense of the disjointed tale. _The Goddess, reborn... to an insane mother? Without her memories?_

“I have a feeling that storytelling is not your forte,” laments Edelgard slowly. “But let me see if I can clarify — you’re saying _you’re_ the Goddess that the Church of Seiros tells everyone to worship?”

Sothis grimaces. “Unfortunately,” she says, as if admitting a sordid truth. “Believe me, nobody is unhappier about that than I am.”

“But you said you couldn’t do much magic at all,” argues Edelgard, her mind unwilling to concede to such a ridiculous notion. “Then how can you be...?”

“I can’t do magic, no. I’m not saying I have any godly abilities, just that I’m the — consciousness of, well, me, I suppose. Or the soul, perhaps...?” ponders Sothis, trailing off. Then she shakes her head. “What’s with the sudden skepticism? Weren’t _you_ the one that made some truly astounding leaps of logic about what I might be based on a _single_ remark I made about wanting to become a dragon?”

“That,” intones Edelgard in the driest tone she can muster, “was before you claimed to be _the_ _literal progenitor_.”

Sothis huffs indignantly. “Alright, Miss Edelgard knows-far-more-than-she-reasonably-should-about-any-of-this von Hresvelg, I answered your question honestly. You can believe me, or not — your choice,” she says, bristling. “But it’s time for you to hold up your end of the bargain.”

“I already told you,” protests Edelgard, though her argument sounds weak even to her. “I asked because I wanted to know what side you were on — mine, or the ones who have long controlled Fódlan.”

“That’s the most circular answer I’ve ever gotten, and I’ve had to listen to Dad explain how having a mug of ale before noon doesn’t count because it doesn’t count,” retorts Sothis. Edelgard blinks to process the strange mental image, but Sothis hammers on, “What I want to know is how you possibly knew about the _controlling Fódlan in secret_ thing, and also what exactly you mean by _side_. What exactly are you planning that needs me to pick a side?”

Edelgard swallows, hanging her head. Here is the conversation she has been dreading all along — Sothis’ unbelievably strange revelation had been entirely unexpected, and she has no idea what to make of it... but it doesn’t change the truth she will now have to reveal.

“I told you about what happened to my siblings, but I didn’t say why,” begins Edelgard in a low murmur. “Their deaths were not the work of disease, or nature — we were imprisoned in the dungeons beneath the palace and ruthlessly experimented on by a group of mages. The object was to produce a child that bore two Crests, instead of just one. I bear a Minor Crest of Seiros from my bloodline, but most of my siblings weren’t so lucky, and in the end... well, the mages succeeded. At the cost of our lives, naturally.

“You might not believe me, of course,” she finishes ruefully, even as Sothis shakes her head and rasps an _I do_. “I hardly deserve such faith. But even so... when you see my Crest, you will know that I speak the truth.”

Edelgard breathes in, and conjures the Crest of Flames in her free hand.

She has always thought the butterfly-shaped pattern beautiful; the way it sparks and sputters as it follows the bare flame in her palm, the way the Crest’s edges remain barely visible and easily mistaken for the contours of the fire itself, and the way its gentle orange glow fills her with warmth even when she is pretending to be something she isn’t while trying to forget the noose of destiny tied around her neck.

Its beauty, perhaps, is the reason she can stomach looking at it; knowing the ten-fold cost of its existence she must bear for as long as she lives to possess it.

“I wonder,” murmurs Sothis in a tone of hushed awe and curiosity, the flame’s reflection dancing in her eyes. “Hm.”

Edelgard blinks in bemusement, but Sothis only silently splays her palm open next to Edelgard’s, frowning at it in what appears to be supreme concentration, before she mutters a nonsensical word.

“I always thought the only bit of fire I could summon looked a little... odd,” muses Sothis, as Edelgard’s world grinds to a halt at the weakly sputtering fire in Sothis’ palm bearing the slight but unmistakeable emblem of her own Crest’s twin.

Two completely identical Crests in two entirely disparate palms, dancing away merrily next to each other without a care in the world for what they will wreak.

Edelgard hadn’t wanted to believe it, truly, but here is the closest thing to incontrovertible proof that her grand ambitions of mantling a Goddess-slayer’s destiny are destined for failure.

“So it’s true,” breathes Edelgard, unable to really process the thought. “You really are...”

Edelgard thinks of the unhurt green stems in a vase of red carnations, and considers leaving.

She could walk away.

She could walk away while she ignores the sound of her heart tearing itself out of her chest and while she pretends not to feel the look of betrayal that would surely sear itself onto her retreating back. She could walk away from this arena, walk away from this battle she is wholly unprepared for, walk away from this blessed place with its halcyon days and coldly soothing nights.

She could walk away, don the cold white mask of the Flame Emperor, and wear it till the day she is slain by the follies of her own, pathetic heart.

She could walk away.

She _should_ walk away.

And yet—

_And yet, she told me she would help me... why?_

“Seems so... for all the good it’s ever done anyone,” replies Sothis, her mouth twisting into a bitter smile as Edelgard’s mind twists itself into endless knots. “The Goddess you cried out to had nothing to do with your survival.”

“Survival?” repeats Edelgard, surprised out of her ever-despairing ruminations. “I had to see my siblings cut open, and hear them scream their throats raw at what we endured. Until a few days ago, I didn’t even remember what they sounded like when they weren’t screaming in fear and agony. You might think I survived... but the truth is, only a shadow shaped like me climbed out of that dungeon.”

Sothis shakes her head insistently, working her lips around a soundless reply, but Edelgard only chuckles hollowly. “Close your eyes, Goddess,” she instructs.

The Goddess doesn’t hesitate for even the barest moment before she does as commanded — _why?_ — and Edelgard worms her hand out of her grasp to slip her gloves off. Sothis had, perhaps, not registered that she hadn’t been wearing them when she’d rescued her from the blood-spattered fields of Gaspard—

—but the rough texture of the dozens of tiny, meticulously carved surgical scars on Edelgard’s palms against her face makes her breath hitch.

“Do you feel them?” breathes Edelgard, stiffening only slightly when Sothis almost instantly raises her beautifully calloused hands to lay them over the backs of Edelgard’s, feeling the many layers of suffering carved into her skin. “I’m a broken, sewn-up shell; patched up enough so that my blood doesn’t spill out at the first opportunity. It will be enough if it lasts until I can do what I was made to do, and end this suffering of Crests once and for all — but I will hardly ever be fit to be called a person.”

“You’re _wrong_ ,” rasps Sothis furiously, eyes still shut tightly. “You — can I open my eyes, Edelgard?”

Edelgard wavers slightly in shame — _what will she think when she sees me for what I really am? —_ but relents eventually with a whispered _yes._

Sothis opens green eyes awash with unshed tears, and laces her fingers through the hands splayed on her face.

“You’re _beautiful_ , and if they broke you, you remade yourself with a filling of _gold_ ,” promises Sothis, to a prickling rush of some vast, unnameable feeling that storms through Edelgard’s veins. “I wish I — I don’t think you noticed how much sleep I lost trying to learn how to not be uncouth around you when we first met, because being raised by Jeralt and a band of men and women who kill people and sleep around for fun wasn’t conducive to manners necessary to not make an utter fool out of myself in front of a jaw-droppingly gorgeous princess — but I still don’t have words to describe how much...”

She sighs and squeezes her fingers around Edelgard’s tightly, closing her eyes again.

“You make me _feel_ things,” mumbles Sothis, and Edelgard’s heart does decidedly odd things to her ribs. Sothis opens her eyes to fix them onto Edelgard’s with a determined stare, and continues, “I don’t know what that means, my sister’s insistent ramblings on the matter aside, but like I told you at the start... whatever I am, and whatever you are, I’ll help you make that world a reality.”

Edelgard’s heart reminds her again that it _hates_ losing control — she certainly has none left over her own thoughts or feelings by now, it seems — but for the first time in her life, she can’t feel the arrhythmic pounding in her chest over the all-consuming vastness of a sea of hope she finds herself _wanting_ to drown in.

“Even if you have to fight your own family for it? Your... children?” rasps Edelgard, her mind stuck on one last raft before it sinks beneath the waves.

Sothis huffs out a scornful laugh. “I clearly didn’t raise them right,” she grumbles. “But I doubt we’ll need to fight them; they’ll listen to me. Although you might have to—”

The remainder of her sentence is swallowed by Edelgard’s lips.

“—help me co-parent,” finishes Sothis in a stunned whisper, eyes wide as dinnerplates as she turns a shade that clashes colourfully with her hair. “What — you can’t just—”

“If you don’t want me to, I won’t do it again,” promises Edelgard, face burning at her own audacity but thoroughly entertained at the way Sothis averts her eyes as she leans in. “But I can’t promise I won’t be very disappointed.”

“ _Edelgard_ —”

“You can call me El when we’re alone,” breathes Edelgard after she has stolen more of Sothis’ words, dark brown lashes tangling with green. “I thought the girl who was given that nickname died long ago, but now... I feel like she might get another chance to live.”

“El,” repeats Sothis in a reverent whisper, still blushing even as she makes the name sound like a promise. “El...”

Edelgard shudders slightly. “Ease into it, please,” she mumbles in sudden embarrassment as she leans away, her heart skipping far too many beats at the sound of the nickname so rarely heard. Sothis blinks in surprise, then giggles lightly as she follows Edelgard’s movement to wrap her in a gentle embrace.

“You know... you still didn’t tell me how you knew about any of this,” mumbles Sothis into her ear after a long, blissful silence.

Edelgard’s eyelids flutter slightly. She knows she needs to say many things still, and even though she now sits here, having decided to stay and be held gently in the arms of the woman she—

— _well._ _Everything in due course._

“Hmmm,” she hums, feeling far too weightless to give the question much heed.

“One revelation at a time, I suppose,” grouses Sothis in disappointment, dragging a warm burst of mirth out of Edelgard.

* * *

_Click, clack._

_Click—_

“You’ve a guest, milady,” says the soldier nervously.

“Only one? How unexpected... where?” inquires his liege, pausing in her stride.

“In the — the dining hall, Lady,” replies the soldier, sweat beading on his forehead. “She—”

“Thank you, darling,” sweetly interrupts the woman he answers to. “Inform the guard that we are not to be disturbed. Run along, now.”

The soldier leaves, barely managing to sketch a hasty bow as he does.

_Click, clack, click, clack..._

The woman in red walks the length of the hallway leading to the dining hall, the stone reverberating at the strike of her boots as she does. Fhirdiad is bitterly cold year-round, but though her dress is too thin to provide much of a barrier against the numbing chill that emanates from the walls and floors of the royal castle, her manner betrays nothing of being affected by it. Smooth, unhurried strides lead her down the hallway lit gently by the braziers that attempt to colour the frigid air around her with something approaching the fiery warmth of her hair, but the flames they carry hiss and sputter as she passes, as if recoiling from her very being.

The woman in red arrives at the door of the dining hall, and hesitates for only the most imperceptible of moments before she pushes through.

Inside is arrayed furniture of remarkable splendour — tables of the finest mahogany, chairs of fine, burnished oak, cloth of shimmering satin, and dinnerware of gleaming silver. The smooth, faded stone that decorates the rest of the royal castle at Fhirdiad does not make an appearance in this grand hall — instead, its appearance is rough-hewn, as if carved from a mountain and left in its raw, blistered form; a reminder, perhaps, of its wild origin.

But curiously, the braziers that fill every other hall and hallway of the castle proper are missing, here; no flame sputters away from the woman in red because there _is_ no flame. Smooth, round orbs that glow with a warm orange light decorate the walls instead, and the absence of the flicker of fire gives the hall a feeling of being frozen in time. In its own way, this is perhaps not far off the truth — for it so happens that the grand hall in this castle has a storied tradition.

It is remarked, in hushed, wondering tales passed from fathers to daughters and mothers to sons, that of the half a dozen monarchs that have breathed in the air from this hall, none have ever donned their royal crown without first partaking in a grand feast held in its splendour — and of these half a dozen or so grand feasts that the various Kings of Faerghus have stuffed their bellies with, none have ever seen them live to breathe the air from this hall past the ripe young age of fifty.

The seventh King of Faerghus that was told of a grand feast to be held in his honour upon his crowning ordered the doors of the grand hall to be shut forevermore; a decree enforced on all his subjects under pain of being hung from the neck until death.

The crowning feasts are held in the throne room, now, and are indeed made to be less grand than they would have been, once upon a time.

Later, the historians who now make the royal libraries of Fhirdiad their home argue for the true cause of such happenstance, if happenstance it does happen to be; some blame a curse, while some curse those who blame superstitious witchcraft. Others yet insist upon the fickle whimsies of the lady named Plague as the sole cause of the misfortune. These others, it may be noted, insist on the reopening of this grand hall — and yet, upon being asked to pave the way so that others may follow in their step, fall... strangely silent.

But the woman in red knows the truth. Curses, imprudence, plague... all are merely weapons to be wielded by the ones who have descended beyond human whimsy. The woman in red knows this when she sees the table in the grand hall laden with a feast to shame the most gluttonous of dead Kings — mountains of mouth-watering meat: hardy mountain lamb slow-roasted to tender perfection and succulent winter pheasants stuffed with blocks of salt and butter — rows of ripe vegetables: some sautéed and layered into delicious patterns of colour rarely seen in the desolate land of Faerghus, some left whole and grilled on cinderblocks until their flesh oozes with sweet nectar — even piles of plump fruit: oranges with cores a bloodier red than the edge of a headsman’s axe, pears a sweet verdant shade rarely seen this far north of the Oghma, and hefty papaya with pulp dripping with flavour.

The woman in red sees the table, and knows that the ones who have descended beyond the light do not care for curses or imprudence or plague because such things only thrive in the light — indeed, halls that slay mortal men and women are not meant for those that still walk in the harsh brightness of the sun.

A long, slender, orange-tipped blade snakes out from the only chair in the hall that faces away from its entrance, and slams into an orange with a sharp _thud_. The blade lifts its prey up slowly, sashaying back from whence it came, and disappears into the shadow hidden by the high back of the chair’s opulence. The woman in red hears a noisy _squelch_ and the sound of a deep, satisfied hum — then sees a half-gloved hand dangle a gleaming silver goblet almost seductively off the arm of the chair, the dark liquid within swirled loosely by the gentle motion of pale, slender fingers.

Three long, slender, orange-tipped blades scrape against the ground, lift the chair, and rotate it easily in place to face the hall’s entrance, before settling in place behind the visage of the unveiled shadow.

Bloody red liquid trails from pale lips over a smooth, sharply angled chin, and eventually drips down to snake between the valley of the seated figure’s chest. A long, slender, orange-tipped blade floats up gently and scoops the drop up to the woman’s mouth before it can fall terribly far, where a viper-quick lash of a pink tongue cleans it off. The pale lips still glistening _smack_ noisily, then curl into a dangerously content smile.

“Oh, Cornelia,” sighs the demon contentedly. “What a wonderful feeling, to have all of our brilliant plans coalesce into such _sweet_ fruition...”

“Kronya,” purrs the woman in red, the door to the forbidden hall easing shut behind her. “Shall we hold a grand feast to celebrate the success of our experiment... and the succession of our most unfortunate leaders?”

The echoing laughter of the demon extinguishes the shuddering braziers in the hallway leading to the dining hall. In the darkness, only the not-flame of soundless, glowing bright orbs illuminates the banquet on which a woman in red and a shadowed demon gorge themselves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *sea shanties play as a ship finally dislodges anchors and floats away slowly "into the dawn"* top!el but she still can't handle emotions so she gives way to top!sothis who is actually great with emotions but just a single kiss makes her gay panic—
> 
> yes, the reason Sothis was late to the mock battle in chapter 7 and spoke so rigidly in that little monologue then was because she overslept leafing through _Noblesse and You: A Guide for Peasants_ to impress her hot house leader. now _that_ is dedication.
> 
> but really this was hard as fuck to write and four revisions later I _still_ don't know if it's very good, so please be gentle ;-;
> 
> and in funnier news, this chapter also marks the one-third-ish point for this story! originally, this point in the story was past even the halfway mark, but then I realised I was being a little dum-dum with how little I had planned for the totally awesome ideas I somehow thought up, so I had to revamp everything and come up with an entirely new and _much_ longer story direction to lead towards the same end point. (oh god oh fuck this means I will have to have written close to 300k words by the end of this story, I'm already dying send help)
> 
> so the next third should be (somewhat) more Blue Lions (and a little bit of Golden Deer) focused - I say somewhat, because while I will pull hilarious shenanigans to further my aim, the Eagles (and the Church gang) still have some truly fearsome POV-hogging energy. and then, of course, there's some surprise guests that may soon make an appearance and demand their slice of the pie...


	19. What Lies Beneath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The discovery of a theft unearths a secret left festering too long in the dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alt summary: G5 F#5 D#5 A4 G#4 E5 G#5 C6

The bright mornings after days of hard-fought battles always carry with them the sweet scent of victory: a gut-twisting stink of rot and death. The plains of Gaspard are rife with the smell, and though many of its people still live, they know in their hearts of hearts that their troubles can merely have begun. For their land is scarred, torn apart by the bloodied boots of those who have fought and died on it, and the people left behind — they, too, are not unscathed. Their scars are less visible, true, but they are no less damaging: a father will reach with quaking hands towards his children and touch their faces with a look of shaky disbelief at their survival, a mother will shudder involuntarily at the sound of a blacksmith striking steel with steel because she remembers the horrific sounds of war and death, and a child will stare blankly at the world as it passes her by because her eyes remain forever full of the sight of blood and scorched earth and raging fire.

These people have lost much, and yet they have won; they live, and though some hardly feel it, their wounds have already begun to scab over. Already the father returns to thoughts of the farm overdue for a harvest, already the mother begins thinking of all the pheasants she will need to hunt to feed her hungry family, and already the child begins to hear the sounds of quietly uttered laughter and feel the relieving warmth of another bright morning.

But they three question; the father, the mother, the child. They question, and those around them question still: Where is their sovereign? Why does he not share in their joy? What keeps him and his family? What will become of Gaspard?

The answer, their wandering gazes know, lies in the mountains that brought their saviours to them, and the Monastery nestled atop it. The family of the Lord of Gaspard currently resides there, surely; if wandering gazes could see far-flung sights and roving ears could hear whisper-faint sounds, they would expect to see the much-adored children of Gaspard running around in the bright morning, and hear their excited laughter as they gather curious and fond glances from those who make the Academy atop the mountains their home.

Perhaps after the children would chase a sweet-hearted and absent-minded student, clad in uniformed white raiment with loosely tied blonde hair flying behind her; she might giggle softly and merrily as she gives chase. Perhaps along with her would run a much shorter (yet no less sweet) friend; her red hair and easy demeanour might sweet-talk the beloved children into being easier to catch. Perhaps the pride of the family, the silver-haired boy, would join forces with his friends and chase along with them, and perhaps together they would gather many adoring smiles along the course of their merriment.

But wandering gazes will not see past the tightly shut doors of an office above a beloved cathedral, and roving ears will not hear the silence in the room within — a silence broken by nothing but the enmity of two warriors who have been forced to sheathe their blades in grudging deference to the shared ideal of halting needless bloodshed.

“Assassinate me?” wonders Rhea to break the silence, even as Seteth reads the letter with plans of her death in alarm. “They must have known what a futile effort that might have been.”

The Lord she so dearly wishes to behead huffs in affront, and says, “Believe what you will — that letter bears the seal of the Western Church, so it is as authentic as it can be.”

“Thank you for informing us of it, then, Lord Lonato,” intones Rhea. “I believe that concludes our discussion. Unless you have anything else to say, Catherine will see you out.”

She almost smiles at the look of undisguised loathing that erupts on his face, as Catherine steps out of the corner she has been slinking in and stares at him awkwardly before she utters a, “Er — this way, then.”

Lonato glares at Rhea one last time before he turns on his heel and marches away, Catherine barely managing to squeeze through the office doors as he slams them shut on his way out.

“May the Goddess watch over you,” says Rhea into the ringing silence left by his departure.

“That was unnecessarily cruel,” frowns Seteth after several beats.

“I have no idea what you might mean,” says Rhea, smiling beatifically at him; the very picture of innocence. He rolls his eyes at her — fatherhood has clearly taken its toll on his once-legendary patience — and places the letter on her desk with a frown instead.

“You do not believe the threat to be real?” he asks. “Assassins are hardly a thing to take so lightly.”

“I doubt they are any more real than the ones who try every few months or so,” asserts Rhea confidently. “No — the value of that letter is in the distraction. Something meant to distract us on the day of the Rite of Rebirth, perhaps.”

Seteth’s frown deepens.

“I have been taking lessons on trickery from Mother, over tea,” admits Rhea proudly. “I am confident she would agree with my view.”

“If you say so,” says Seteth slowly. “I might... speak to her about it later.”

“They _are_ useful lessons,” agrees Rhea, pondering a stray thought as she rises from her chair. “Hm. Walk with me, Seteth.”

“Very well,” replies Seteth, falling into step with her as they descend the stairs leading to the grand cathedral.

The gentle streams of light that rain in from the massive coloured-glass pane behind the statue of her mother are still just as golden as the day Rhea had been reunited with her, but the long rows of pews in the cathedral are less empty than they had been that day. Indeed, as Rhea walks through the hall towards the statue with an unhurried stride, she sees many virtuous heads bowed in reverence; many exultant voices, too, complete the symphony of faithful remembrance.

A smile tries to touch her face when she pauses, for just a moment, in front of the towering statue of Sothis — for the first time since she had reclaimed her mother’s bloodied spine from the filthy hands of the traitor, she lets it bloom.

She has no need to hide now, after all; let all and sundry know of her joy.

_They will not take her from me again._

Seteth, hardly loquacious at the best of times in her company, only stares at the statue with an odd look in his eye; Rhea does not think she can term it a _fond_ look, perhaps, but it appears to be a scale of the same hide. A look of bemused confusion, possibly... she wonders what might be puzzling him so. Perhaps, he, too, feels the sense of nostalgic whimsy that threads through her mind — although if he does, his face shows nothing of it.

Rhea studies him some more, her curiosity piqued. Seteth’s face does not show much at all; indeed, he looks the same as he always does. Loyal, dependable, and... _secretive_.

“Is something the matter?” asks Seteth, finally turning away from his enigmatic musings and meeting her eyes squarely.

Rhea’s smile widens. “I was thinking,” she says, turning to walk down the set of stairs — pausing briefly in surprise when a blonde-haired woman sprints past her with a cheerily polite, “Sorry, Lady Rhea!” — towards the heart of the Monastery. “We aren’t much alike, are we?”

Seteth snorts, eyeing the fleeing Mercedes with a disapproving gaze. “Has this occurred to you only now?” he replies wryly.

Rhea exhales softly in amusement, gesturing gently at the guard to allow them passage beyond the locked gate and to watch for their return. “No,” she says, shrugging with a graceful roll of her shoulder. “But I remembered it just now. You never did like to share much, did you?”

“Rhea,” sighs Seteth, as they come to a stop outside a grand set of doors far too heavy for a single person to open alone. “I would rather keep to the fifty or so words of idle conversation we limit ourselves to exchanging every year. You need not try so hard.”

Rhea laughs at him, privately revelling at the surprised look on his face at the rare sound of her genuine mirth. “We _really_ are not much alike,” she confirms with a grin.

Seteth rolls his eyes at her _again_ — the audacity! He would not have _dared_ , mere months ago — and says, _sotto voce_ , “Has Flayn been sharing too much of her candy with you? I did warn her about the dangers of unfettered access to sugar—”

“Careful, _brother_ ,” warns Rhea with an amused smile, snaking a lightning-quick hand through his mane of hair and pinching the tip of his ear. “I am not above retribution for such disrespect.”

He irritably swats away her hand, and snarks, “I did think you were above acting like you were _four_. Must I tell Mother on you again?”

“You should not joke about things like that,” mutters Rhea with a reflexive shudder, placing her palms on the gargantuan doors. A grunt of moderate effort rolls them slowly open, and whatever retort Seteth might have made dies at the sight of the Holy Mausoleum.

It silences her too, this hallowed place; tall, thick stone stone columns and shimmering, immaculately polished floors fill her vision, and against the backdrop of the vast and empty space, the numerous shrines and coffins that dot the ground give the echoing silence a somber tone. That silence echoes down into the distance, where the roof of the hall rises into a dome, and accentuates the massive tomb positioned directly below its centre.

A tomb meant for her.

“You plan on giving it to her,” realises Seteth, as Rhea begins walking with a confident purpose in her stride towards the thing she has long held dearer than her own life.

“It _is_ hers,” confirms Rhea with a saddened frown. “I — it will be bittersweet, holding it for the last time. But now I have her back, and it is my hope that I can—”

“Rhea,” intones Seteth softly from somewhere behind her. She turns in surprise, having expected him to walk alongside her; instead, he seems to be inspecting the base of one of the pillars with a deep frown on his face.

“Is something the matter?” inquires Rhea hesitantly when he doesn’t reply. She tries to follow his gaze to see what perplexes him so, but sees nothing much except the apparently fascinating pillar that looks... much the same as every other in this hall. So what—

—wait. The pillar _looks_ to be the same, but as she stares at it something in her mind subtly protests at the sight. She _thinks_ the pillar is identical to the one beside it, and yet... and yet her eyes...

Rhea blinks, and the perfectly crafted fog of illusion disperses to reveal a broken and teetering column of stone instead, with unmistakable signs of spell damage scorching the surface of the ground at its base. She steps towards it in fascination, blinking again, and the pristine wall behind the pillar unravels to reveal a large, gaping hole in it that leads into some unknown, forbidding abyss.

Her jaw drops of its own accord — an illusion powerful enough to fool even _her_ at first glance? _How fascinating... it must have taken a spellcaster of extraordinary—_

Her blood suddenly freezes in her veins when she realises where she stands, and what the presence of a mage powerful enough to fool her with an illusion could mean — _here in the Holy Mausoleum_.

“No,” breathes Rhea in sudden, stark terror. The silence in the hall is no longer somber; it turns to throw shards of ice at her spine with every panicked step she takes towards the coffin at the far end. _No, no, no, please let it be—_

Her hands are shaking, she realises as she heaves at the coffin’s lid and throws it into a crumbling heap against a wall. They shake just like the day she had woken in Zanado to find her world on fire and the blood of her siblings choking her with every gasping breath she took, crawling amidst the broken bodies of her kin and trying to hide in the bloodied sand—

_No._

Her tomb lies bereft of the last surviving fragment of her mother’s body, and the coppery tang of horror darkens her vision once more as she collapses onto the immaculately polished floor with a broken cry of anguished rage.

* * *

“I believe,” whispers Hanneman in tones of shocked approval, “that we may have been outsmarted.”

“Somehow, I don’t think that’s as commendable as you make it sound,” mutters Manuela snidely from his side. It makes Jeralt huff out a breath that may have been a slightly louder exhale, or perhaps even a laugh. (With him, it is remarkably difficult to tell.)

But Hanneman only distractedly shakes his head at his colleague’s disapproval. He does bear _some_ responsibility for having dragged both of them into this, of course; Seteth had finally had enough of Hanneman’s attempts to investigate his very curious Crest, with the predictable result of—

“And,” cuts Manuela across his thoughts with a loud sigh, “I don’t see why fine, upstanding Professors — like Jeralt and I, for instance — must suffer when _you’re_ the one Seteth has grounded, Hanneman.”

“Well,” points out Hanneman defensively after he tries briefly to regain his train of thought before giving it up as a fruitless task, “Jeralt _did_ volunteer.”

“I did,” confirms Jeralt with a sheepish rub of his neck when Manuela shoots him an outraged look. “Er, sorry. But I was curious about what happened the last time we tried to enter the catacombs of the Monastery — what with that sudden monster attack business and all.”

Manuela’s indignation seems to be somewhat mollified at this, and Hanneman decides it will take her long enough to puzzle out her feelings on the matter for him to return to his study of the curiously crafted padlock on the heavy grate blocking their path. He casts a standard unlocking spell again, and it clinks and creaks studiously against the lock, seeming to seek out every last tumbler inside — following which absolutely _nothing_ happens.

“Fascinating,” breathes Hanneman. He hadn’t expected it to be quite that simple, of course, but still—

Manuela sniffs, likely losing her patience already, and eyes the lock disdainfully. “Why can we _not_ break this open, did you say?” she questions sardonically.

Hanneman turns around to survey the tunnel they find themselves in. From what Seteth had told them, a monumentally important artifact has been stolen from the Holy Mausoleum, and the likely path for the thief to have taken is this very tunnel that spawns from a hole in the wall of the tomb and leads to some sort of network of similarly sinister tunnels in the catacombs deep underneath the Monastery. The dark, bare walls of this tunnel would not ordinarily afford much confidence in that hypothesis — except that they are far too rounded and contain far too many supporting archways and stonework that cannot have been the work of any but deliberate human hands.

He wonders if the Archbishop hadn’t known of the existence of this place. Certainly, she knows much more than he about the depths of Garreg Mach, and assuredly more of the magic that sustains it, but she had seemed curiously reticent to explain when he had inquired — indeed, perhaps _distraught_ may have been a better way to describe her expression at his questions about the theft. He’d thought it wise to gather his colleagues and leave, after that, and Jeralt’s blue-haired daughter had passed them by with a cheery wave as the trio of Professors embarked to explore the curiously placed tunnels — ah, now what a brilliant girl that is. Her green-haired sister has that incredibly curious block on her magic, of course, and naturally his inclination is to investigate a situation which may surprise his eyes with much more than what has met them so far — but given Byleth’s unbelievably unique grasp of the magical arts, he can hardly imagine—

“—well? I didn’t think the question was _that_ complicated,” Manuela is complaining in tones of exasperation, making Hanneman blink away the fog from his vision. _Perhaps I let my thoughts run away from me there..._

“My apologies,” coughs Hanneman in slight embarrassment. “But after giving some thought to the matter... why, I believe this lock may be the lynchpin for a system of very complex illusions, and breaking it with brute strength may in fact cause some... explosive results.”

Manuela stares at him in bewilderment, but Jeralt offers an unexpected nod of support.

“Not sure about any explosions, but I got the same feeling, last time,” agrees Jeralt. “It feels like one of Byleth’s illusions, almost, except... less pervasive, somehow.”

“Less... pervasive,” repeats Manuela slowly. “Maybe that’s why these chains...” she pauses to rattle the thick-set iron wrapping around the rusty grate, “don’t actually appear to be tied to the gate,” she says, and pulls at the loosened chain, making it come away with the lock still attached from the grate blocking their progress.

Hanneman stares in awe at the now accessible entrance to the foreboding depth of the tunnel, and then at the chain-and-lock Manuela drops with a heavy _clatter-clang_ to the floor.

She raises her brow at his continued staring. “Your vision is failing, old man,” she snarks at him, dousing him handily with the arctic waters of reality.

“Must you always be so antagonistic?” sighs Hanneman, as Jeralt pulls at the rusty grate and swings it open with a grunt.

“Must you always be so _preachy_?” retorts Manuela.

Hanneman frowns in affront. “Why, I never—”

Jeralt clears his throat loudly to interrupt the oncoming argument. “Why don’t we,” he suggests with a pleasant smile on his face, “start investigating these very interesting-looking ruins?”

“Er, as you say,” mutters Hanneman, as he and Manuela both nod hurriedly in agreement, similarly cowed. Something about the look in his eye... _perhaps this is what being a parent does to you,_ realises Hanneman in horror.

He takes a moment to thank himself for deciding to never have children, then walks past the gate, wondering what he is about to step into.

This side of the tunnel looks the same as the one behind the gate, and so he tells his mind it must then _feel_ the same... but in a curious twist, his mind seems bent on disagreeing. There is a vague sense of building apprehension, somewhere at the base of his neck, and as Manuela runs a curious hand along the rough-hewn wall, it feels as if he can almost a... pattern, across his senses — a map to the truth which he cannot see and cannot hear, but that his mind somehow still knows the existence of.

“ _That_ is disconcerting to the extreme,” murmurs Manuela, removing her hand. _So she feels it too..._

Jeralt seems to be the one least affected — perhaps it is because of his less finely-tuned magical senses, but Hanneman knows he is not unstudied in the art. After all, he can follow Hanneman’s tangents with surprising alacrity, most times, and Hanneman has seen the man tutoring several students in magic with effortless explanations and decidedly odd analogies that would take a studied mind many decades of practice to even begin to conceive. Perhaps, then, he is simply used to the feeling of his daughter’s illusory magic — although this feels _starkly_ different from the hyper-detailed maze Byleth had turned that forest into, that day of the mock battle so long ago.

 _Indeed,_ muses Hanneman as the trio walk cautiously from tunnel to tunnel in search of an exit, _it seems as if this is an illusion stretched thinner but wider... there are more chances for my mind to be aware of it, yet I am as helpless as ever because there is nowhere I can see that is left untouched! What a work of art..._

“Jeralt,” begins Hanneman curiously into the silence as they walk slowly through the dark, Manuela’s blue magelight hovering behind them to illuminate the way. “You never did tell us what transpired when last you ventured into the catacombs that likely connect to this place.”

“Yes, do tell,” agrees Manuela. “All sorts of... _odd_ tales have been circulating about that entire incident. I suppose the excitement was buried with the incident at the Cathedral and the battle at Gaspard, though.”

“Ah,” sighs Jeralt. “Well. I don’t think I fully understand what happened there, myself. One moment we were heading down into the catacombs, into whatever shadowed underground of the Monastery houses the vagrants that make it home, and the next we get attacked by a bunch of hired assassins. Except,” Jeralt pauses briefly as if to emphasise the point, “that before they could actually fight us, they were set upon by _another_ bunch of mercenaries claiming to be bounty hunters searching for some sort of king or other. Not that I know what kind of monarch they thought they might find all the way down there...”

“And the monster that was summoned?” urges Hanneman.

“I’m getting there,” says Jeralt with a wag of his finger, clearly enjoying his captive audience. “While the two bands of mercenaries were duking it out and the Knights were busy deciding whether or not to intervene, a bunch of stragglers claiming to hail from the abyss showed up. I thought they were just being dramatic, but they told the Archbishop someone from the depths wanted to speak with her — although before she could even reply, the monster showed up, completely out of the dark, and ate a few of the bounty hunters.”

“And...?” prods Manuela.

“And nothing,” sighs Jeralt again. “The abyssal folk who’d showed up with the invitation vanished in the chaos as we killed the monster, and the network of tunnels seemed far too complicated to explore without needing several days to do it. So we left to let the injured Knights rest, and now... here I am again.”

“How anticlimactic a tale, and yet... that truth of that battle managed to be stranger than even the rumours about it,” muses Hanneman.

“Yeah...” frowns Jeralt. “Something about that whole series of events seemed... off. I’ve seen far more than my fair share of battles, but the chaos in that one was almost _too_ organised. Maybe even orchestrated, you might say.”

The three lapse into silence, and Hanneman wonders which of them might be imagining the scenario closest to the truth.

...

On their thirtieth turn into yet another tunnel, Jeralt stops suddenly. “We’re getting nowhere,” he says softly.

“Everywhere we’ve been looks different, and yet I am inclined to agree with you,” wonders Hanneman, as Manuela frowns sharply at the walls around them.

“The air,” elaborates Jeralt. “It may look different... but the air feels the same as when we entered. If we had really been moving around, it would have felt either heavier, or lighter — depending on if we’d been going deeper or not.”

Hanneman takes in a deep breath, and realises the man is correct — he smells the same damp scent of stale air, and it has not varied since Manuela had unlocked that gate.

“Sometimes,” murmurs Manuela, still eyeing the walls around them with deep suspicion as she runs a hand along one of them. “Sometimes you don’t need to _see_ to believe.”

Hanneman blinks at the odd non-sequitur. “I beg your pardon?”

“The dirt and wear on this wall,” says Manuela slowly, “feels the same as it did two dozen turns ago. It looks darker, of course, which I might have expected, but my hand tells me that it feels the exact same. The illusion covers everything we can see, or think of, but it doesn’t cover everything we can hear, or smell, or feel. The dead silence has the same quality it always has, the air is just as stale, and this wall is just as rough and dusty as it has always been. If I believe in the feeling of my hand...”

Hanneman watches in building excitement as Manuela closes her eyes and exhales softly. Her words are reasonable, of course, and if she is correct, then—

Manuela reopens her eyes with a frown, and Hanneman swallows his disappointment. “I felt... _something_ , but I suppose my faith in my senses isn’t enough on its own,” she surmises, gently slapping a hand against the offending tunnel wall.

“You seem strangely more comfortable with touching things down here than I expected,” muses Hanneman. Then again, he knows how outrageous a _slob_ she is — perhaps that, despite her affected mannerisms of elegance, have made her less squeamish than she might otherwise have been.

“I run an infirmary in an Academy that teaches the art of battle,” replies Manuela dryly, making Jeralt snort. “I’ve had to become more comfortable with touching worse things than a dilapidated wall.”

Hanneman coughs lightly. _That, in addition to your slovenly habits,_ he thinks but does not say for fear of Jeralt’s gimlet look being pointed at him again. Although they have gone without confrontation for a while, so perhaps—

“Wait,” says Jeralt suddenly. “Did you say the walls look _darker_?”

“Well, yes,” blinks Manuela. “We may not have been descending, but since we’re further from fresh air, the dust looks to have set more firmly and caused them to be darker... no?”

“That was my estimation, too,” frowns Hanneman. “What makes you question it, Jeralt?”

“Because they don’t look darker to me,” replies Jeralt in a tone of growing suspicion. “And _that_ reminds me of something — my wife taught me a thing or two about illusions like this, a long time ago. She liked to say they were the nicest form of magic... because they’d always do exactly what you expected them to.”

“Then...” trails off Manuela, frowning.

“Manuela and I see darker walls... because that is what we expected,” realises Hanneman with a thrill. “And you didn’t, because you assumed nothing about their colour, and so the magic had no ideas to change itself with — what a work of _astounding_ genius! Which means...”

The illusion he had thought so complex — no, it was only complex because he, in his hubris, had imagined it to be like his scores of pages of Crest research; convoluted and sprawling at best. He had _wanted_ a complex illusion to be trapped by... and the illusion had merely conformed to his grand expectation.

“Perhaps we should confirm what we see, then,” suggests Manuela. “And if there are any discrepancies...”

“Then the hold of the magic on our minds gets even weaker,” agrees Jeralt. “Hm. The ground is dirt-paved but smooth.”

“Agreed,” replies Hanneman. “The roof is stone-wrought, with an archway to support the structure.”

“Stone-wrought, yes, but I don’t see an archway,” disagrees Manuela. “I expected parts of the roof to have drooped downwards over the years, instead, which they have.”

“Are the walls smooth, like the roof?” questions Jeralt.

“No,” blinks Hanneman, and as he does the tunnel around him seems to shimmer. “They are... rough-hewn...”

Manuela opens her mouth to say something, but an ominous rumble from the distance interrupts her before she can speak.

“I fear that may have been the sound of the illusion unravelling,” says Hanneman apprehensively. “We have weakened the patchwork enough, and now we must dig underneath at the pattern. But try as I might,” and he closes his eyes and focuses the hardest he can to prove that he does indeed try to the best of his ability, “I cannot seem to shake its fog from my eyes.”

Suddenly, Jeralt turns, and with a loud growl charges at something invisible. Hanneman watches in alarm as he runs shoulder-first, and slides straight through whatever he must have been aiming at, slamming his bulk into the wall — and bouncing ineffectively off it.

“It was worth a try,” he says defensively at Hanneman’s and Manuela’s concerted stares of concern.

“Clearly,” says Manuela dryly, “whoever designed this illusion thought of that.”

“You’d be surprised at how often you magical types ignore the utility of brute strength,” shrugs Jeralt. “I’ve seen many a good mage fall to that kind of arrogance.”

“The utility of brute strength,” echoes Hanneman in a mutter, too deep in rumination to take much offense even as Manuela bristles. There is something about that turn of phrase... _brute strength_. Where had he—

_Why can we not break this open, did you say?_

_...breaking it with brute strength may in fact cause some... explosive results._

“I was wrong,” breathes Hanneman in realisation.

“By the Goddess,” whispers Manuela back mockingly. “Out with it, then; I’d rather we not be trapped in this strange phantasm for any longer than we have to be.”

“The lynchpin,” says Hanneman, shaking his head in disappointment at her insolence. “It holds everything together. We _have_ been moving, after all, even if we may have done so in circles, so it has had quite a lot of time to sink its claws into us — but if we head back now and shatter it, it will merely unravel via the gaps we have left, instead of exploding like it might have originally done.”

“Except we’ve been walking for nearly an hour, by my estimate,” frowns Jeralt. “With this illusion still in place — if it doesn’t want us to get back, we’ll never find the entrance again.”

“So we’re... trapped,” says Manuela disbelievingly. “All because we thought we could outsmart whoever made this illusion...”

“Except, in the end, we ended up outsmarting ourselves,” adds Jeralt dryly. “Since it’s our expectations it’s feeding off of.”

Hanneman opens his mouth to respond, then closes it in bewilderment when a strange, airy sound echoes around them.

If he hadn’t known better, he would almost have thought it to be a thrice-magnified version of someone’s... sigh?

“That windy sound,” rumbles Jeralt darkly. “I remember hearing that right before the all the chaos, on our last excursion down here. I wonder... but then, I suppose we’ll never know if it was just a coincidence.”

Hanneman shakes his head again. “Such defeatism,” he says. “My dear friends, diving headlong into a new field of study is never _easy._ There are untold secrets merely waiting to be discovered here. And with my research, we can make lightning quick work of them!”

“But what should we expect your research to show us of this place?” snarks Manuela. “There are no Crests here, Hanneman, and I’d bet your efforts in the numerous other fields of magic have slipped because of your irritating focus on them. Illusions are hardly _new_ magic, after all.”

Hanneman grimaces, unable to deny the bite of truth in her words. “That may be so,” he allows. “But many a time, I—”

“...you?” prods Manuela. He shakes his head silently, a stray thought buzzing with all the insistence of a particularly annoying bee at the forefront of his mind. _What should we expect my research to show? Why, I expect it will show many things we want to see, and perhaps some we do not, but what is it about the thought that awakens my sense of—_

— _expectation. What was it Jeralt said his wife had taught him? Illusions like this..._

“...always do what you expect them to,” whispers Hanneman aloud. He is aware of Jeralt’s surprised stare and Manuela’s frown of undisguised concern, but if he just...

“I expect to wave my hand at this wall and see it turn to the entrance grate with the lock lying in front of it,” declares Hanneman, and waves his hand at the wall—

—to see it turn into the entrance grate with the lock lying in front of it.

“Well now,” breathes Jeralt, huffing out a breath in disbelief.

Manuela gingerly steps forward, picking up the padlock which would not open, and says softly, “I expect to be able to crush this lock with my bare hands.”

The lock shatters, and the illusion unravels.

* * *

In the dark beneath the dark, gather those who guard the abyss from the cruelties above.

“Shall we enter the arena, friends?” sings the once-flightless mockingbird to the three arrayed before him.

“Guess we gotta,” shrugs the sorceress, whose hair shines a candy-red and whose sigh summons legions.

“Time for them to learn who the true King is,” agrees the broad-shouldered warrior, whose infamy invites bloodshed and whose smile fells hearts.

The fourth merely sniffs when her companions turn to her for want of affirmation.

“I suppose,” she permits slowly; impeccably dressed mage, whose mind weaves worlds and whose heart holds ambition. “They’ve ignored us for _far_ longer than decorum allows, though, haven’t they?”

“So they have,” smiles the mockingbird, spreading wings that shelter and drawing a sword that slays.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alt alt summary: Fire Emblem: Three Professors, coming soon to a Nintendo Switch near you!
> 
> yes, yes, yes... here they are! the source of many _ugh, fuck, i guess i gotta_ s and part of the reason for an ongoing writer's block, the ashen babies in all their glor— yeah okay I'll be honest, I have no idea how they're going to work in this story and it's the single hardest part of writing this whole thing. but tbh most of that is just me being lazy and not wanting to draft character arcs for 4 more people, so i'll get over it... soon. hopefully. 
> 
> (i promise i still love you, my wolfy abyssal children)
> 
> so yeah, next update might take a bit more than the usual week because of the aforementioned struggles, but it should be much smoother past that! lots of exciting twisties and turnies ;)


	20. Danger in the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Light in the depths only casts longer shadows...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> q: how does one week for an update = one month?  
> a: [_well._](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMjQ3hA9mEA)

“And you want me to help you... hide this from her?” asks Byleth skeptically.

Rhea winces, and sips gingerly at her tea again. “I do not intend to _hide_ it,” she protests. “Just... it is a difficult thing to talk about.”

“I’ll say,” agrees Byleth, cupping her chin meditatively. “So you want me to help you _tell_ her that the last surviving fragment of her body was stolen... and how it’s actually—”

Rhea appears so distraught with each added word that Byleth has stop talking, set her teacup down, and reach over to pat the woman’s trembling hand in consolation. The action stretches her new collection of scars slightly, but she does not even have to consciously consider the trade of an uncomfortable twinge on her hand to comfort a clearly distraught Rhea.

“My apologies,” croaks Rhea, finally collecting herself after a long pause. “It was dearer to me than anything else, for so long, and even though it was scarcely a replacement for her... I do not relish the thought of it in any hands but hers. And if the thieves are our enemies...”

Byleth holds her breath, considering the implications of such a thing happening — then puffs it out in a deep exhale when another, more disconcerting thought occurs to her.

“I don’t suppose it helps that the place they stole it from was meant to be your tomb, does it? Somewhere you always thought was sacred... and safe?” she asks softly.

Rhea blinks, then sets down her cup to rub her arms in a frighteningly vulnerable motion.

“This Monastery,” she whispers, looking out at the garden’s intricate blooms. “I had always intended it to be a refuge for myself and for those scant few of our kind that had survived the war. It ended up being so much more, of course, but... ever since the incident at the Cathedral, and now this — I can only fear you are correct. I feel little of the safety here that I did in times past.”

“We’ll find whoever stole it,” promises Byleth, sympathy surging through her core. “Your home will be safe again.”

Rhea smiles wanly at Byleth, but nods in gratitude nonetheless. “Even so, there are clearly forces that have infiltrated Garreg Mach in numbers greater than either Seteth or I had ever expected. I do not think they will be content to let us hunt them so easily, especially now that they have a weapon of such incredible strength — even if they cannot use it,” she frets.

“I don’t think so, either,” grimaces Byleth. “And neither will Sothis... which is why you need my help telling her, I suppose?”

Rhea nods shamefully, looking much like the adorably chastised angelfish she’d so resembled at their first meeting.

Byleth cups her chin in both hands, trying to think as hard as she can. “I think,” she muses slowly. “You could... bribe her. She’s less likely to chew you out for not telling her earlier if she’s distracted.”

“Bribe?” questions Rhea, apprehension forgotten as she leans forward in sudden excitement. “How — what would I — what does she like?”

“Er,” hesitates Byleth, leaning back slightly in alarm. Would Sothis begrudge Byleth forever for overstepping her boundaries by revealing her most closely-guarded secrets?

_Probably._

Even if she doesn’t, is it wise in the slightest to reveal those secrets to her daughter, who has a _deeply_ unhealthy attachment to her?

_Probably not._

“She loves cool swords,” lies Byleth after a suspenseful moment of staring warily at Rhea’s far-too-excited countenance. _I didn’t think someone who resembles the calmest of angelfish most days could look this dangerously... bubbly._

“Cool... swords?” repeats Rhea slowly, eyes resembling the saucer in her hand.

“Cool swords,” agrees Byleth, secure in the knowledge that Sothis would owe her for the rest of eternity for this. “Cool weapons of any kind, really, but swords especially... she’s crazy about them.”

“I see,” breathes Rhea, looking positively thunderstruck by inspiration. “And — and does she have a similar opinion about shields?”

“Hm?” wonders Byleth absently, too absorbed in daydreams of getting her twin’s firstborn child named after her. “Oh, I suppose so.”

“That is... I thank you, truly,” whispers Rhea reverently, bowing her head in deep deference. Byleth begins to feel a vague smattering of guilt as she snaps away from wondering which of _Imperial Prince Byleth_ or _Imperial Princess Byleth_ might sound nicer, but Rhea raises her head and continues unabated with shining eyes, “You are a credit to Sitri’s memory. I miss her so dearly, and though she is no longer with me, merely knowing that her daughter has grown into a person she would have been proud of — it fills my heart with warmth.”

Byleth scratches the back of her neck awkwardly at the effusive praise she doesn’t quite think she has earned. “You’re welcome,” she replies slowly, wondering if she should have thought over her lie more carefully and used something her sister actually cared about. “I mean, anything to make Sothis happy...?”

“Anything,” agrees Rhea fervently, grasping Byleth’s outstretched hand in both of hers and squeezing it in gratitude. Byleth tries to hold in her wince at the action— and fails miserably, if Rhea’s horrified look is anything to go by.

“You have my sincerest apologies — I did not realise your wounds still pained you,” worries Rhea, lifting Byleth’s hand gingerly. “Have the burn concoctions I set aside not helped?”

“It’s okay. They’ve helped... somewhat,” shrugs Byleth, drawing her hand back to herself and looking it over, still captivated by the dizzying patterns engraved into it. “It’ll heal, even though it’s not really a burn.”

The patchwork of thick-set, angry red-white scars in question twists over nearly the entirety of Byleth’s right forearm, and becomes most apparent as it approaches her hand in a swirling maelstrom of scar tissue. It begins unassumingly; a single, unremarkable thin line extending from her elbow forwards — but then quickly branches into multiple irregular streams of stretched, pale, red-tinted skin that grow wider and wider the closer they get to her hand. There, they crescendo into a messy, jagged crown of pockmarks that obscure the lines of her wrist entirely, and then follow into her hand proper. The stress of forcing such a terrifying amount of magic through her hand has scored open the skin of her palm with rough, barely-healed ridges and crevices, and it speaks painfully of the price she has had to pay for her rather ill-conceived and desperate attempt to take over the mind, heart, and soul of a Crest Beast.

“Indeed,” murmurs Rhea, looking deep in thought as she eyes Byleth’s hand. “I... cannot recall if Sitri ever suffered a similar injury, though I also doubt she ever deigned to pursue such magical extremes.”

_I guess that’s pretty definitive proof she doesn’t know about my mother’s notebooks and diaries..._

“Probably not,” agrees Byleth sagely, choosing not to give voice to the thought. “That would have been very irresponsible of her.”

“I suppose so,” blinks Rhea, seeming mildly surprised. “Hm. I confess to being curious... has Jeralt perhaps chastised you for your actions?”

Byleth smiles sheepishly. “In a way,” she admits. “He said I was old enough now to realise I’ll have to live with the consequences of my own foolishness, so...”

Rhea blinks, then breaks into a surprised chuckle. “I had always been so very curious, all those years ago, to see how Jeralt would fare with parenthood,” she confesses, shaking her head fondly. “It seems I need not have been, because I cannot say I would ever have been surprised that he would say such a thing.”

“He’s changed his style of jokes from what you might be used to, I think,” disagrees Byleth, grinning at Rhea. “We had a bet two years ago, and he lost so badly that—”

“Lady Rhea!” bursts in a Knight from the far end of the hallway leading to the secluded garden. “My apologies for the intrusion, but Seteth urgently requests your presence.”

Rhea frowns in disappointment, but rises slowly to her feet regardless. “I would dearly have liked to speak with you for longer,” she says sadly.

“It’s okay,” reassures Byleth with a jaunty wave of her hand. “We can continue later. And anyway, I promised Flayn I’d fish with her today, so...”

“Indeed? I am glad to know you have made such good friends with her,” smiles Rhea as she turns to leave. “She used to complain often of loneliness, and—” she chuckles ruefully, “I fear it may have been because neither Seteth nor I have ever quite shared her... enthusiasm, for things. And yet she has not uttered a word of boredom since your arrival.”

Byleth nods, pleased that her efforts have netted a worthwhile bounty. Fishing alone can be relaxing, of course, but as her father likes to say...

_More hands, more haul._

Byleth smiles to herself as Rhea is dragged away by the Knight, and leisurely descends the stairs to the floor above the cathedral, and then again to the grand cathedral itself directly beneath. This late in the afternoon, it is rather emptier than it would usually be; the long shadows cast by the sinking sun settle almost completely over the few people present in the hall. Their bowed heads and whispered wishes, too, feel muted under the weight of the encroaching dusk that hangs as a deep stillness in the scent of the air. Even as Byleth turns to walk towards the doorway leading out, the towering statue of—

—a flash of green steals away her focus. _Was that...?_

Byleth comes to a halt, and scans her surroundings with deeper focus.

The hall _is_ emptier than it would usually be, but the few still present are no less animated for their solitude; indeed, a worshipper even shakes his head joyously in exultation of his beloved Goddess as he murmurs out the words to a hymn, and a monk — barely visible in the deep shadow but for her shimmering white robes — gestures animatedly at a student as she explains the importance of... _self-acceptance_? But none in the sparsely filled pews or in the shadows of the Goddess’ statue are the source of the alluring _green_ that had danced ever so slightly at the corner of Byleth’s vision. A green not quite the shade of her sister’s hair, and not quite the shade of Rhea’s — it seems a livelier shade, almost... almost like...

Byleth turns gracefully on her heel and walks cautiously towards the room in the far corner of the hall. She’d discovered massive statues of the Four Saints, here, tucked into this rarely-visited alcove; they are meticulously maintained by a man that claims to be a _peddler of renown,_ though what renown has to do with the upkeep of historical statues she still does not quite understand. Still, the suspicious peddler had decided Byleth was famous enough to warrant a thorough polishing of Saint Cethleann’s statue — which she is certain had directly contributed to the aroma of burning fish wafting from the kitchens one fine morning when Flayn had unexpectedly invited her to a specially-prepared breakfast.

_Maybe I should pre-empt her excitement next time, somehow..._

“Pssst,” whispers the brightly polished statue of Saint Cethleann, cutting through her thought.

Byleth blinks back at it, wondering if it had somehow overheard her thinking about it.

“Hello?” she questions hesitantly, frowning at its gold visage. Could it be, perhaps, that there is more than simple polishing involved in the upkeep of the statue, and the magics involved in its maintenance have made it—

“Down here,” insists the statue in another whisper, and Byleth steps back in alarm.

She looks down as it commands, though, and is rewarded with the sight of a rather unmistakable blob of green hair peeking out from behind the statue. She frowns, and snakes past the statue of Cichol next to it to squeeze herself into the gap from whence the whisper had issued—

—and finds herself looking down at a wide-eyed Flayn.

“I thought you said you would be at the docks,” whispers Byleth, deciding to follow Flayn’s lead in stealth.

“I was, but I — there is something we needed to discuss. Urgently, you see,” breathes Flayn, briefly peeking out of the tight alcove to ensure their secrecy.

“I see,” replies Byleth, not really seeing much of anything beyond Flayn’s rather frazzled-looking hair and her wide green eyes. “What is it?”

“Well,” wavers Flayn, inching closer to Byleth as she frowns thoughtfully at her hands. “I am not quite sure what to think of it, if I am to be honest.”

Byleth waits patiently, even as Flayn suddenly looks up and fixes Byleth with a stare that only seems to be intensified by the lack of distance between them.

“A rumour most concerning caught my ear just a little while ago,” continues Flayn after a hefty pause, casting her gaze about shiftily. “Have you heard of... a place known as Abyss?”

Byleth frowns. “Not by that name,” she says slowly, her tone considering. “But,” she reluctantly admits, “there is an, um... _ongoing investigation_ into the seedy underbelly of the Monastery, and I think I heard Dad refer to it as an abyss, once, so...”

“Seedy underbelly?” wonders Flayn. “I am not certain that I have heard of such a place, despite all my time here...”

“That’s what I said!” agrees Byleth fervently. “But it seems like there _is_ one, and then there’s... er, nevermind.”

Flayn frowns at her. “I do not mean to pry,” she begins, “but it seems like there is something you are hesitant to say.”

Byleth scratches her neck awkwardly. Rhea had only wanted to break the news gently to _Sothis_ , so there would be no harm in telling Flayn, surely, but—

— _but then again, if Sothis finds out she was the last to know about her_ spine _being stolen, she’ll alternate between sad and angry for at least a week, and then Dad will try to tell her an endless stream of jokes to cheer her up, and then she’ll forget about being sad and just be really angry—_

“Sorry,” decides Byleth, feeling distinctly as if she isn’t quite yet ready for the experience for at least a few more years — especially after that Incident With The Giant Worms a few years ago. “I can’t tell you what... er, what I can’t tell you. But I can say that there’s definitely seedy activity in the seedy underbelly of the Monastery, and the Professors are all investigating it right now.”

Flayn’s eyes widen. “Then we have no time to waste, for we must surely come to their aid,” she proclaims. “I am deeply regretful, but it seems we must catch our fish at a later date. You see, the rumour I overheard told a tale of some monstrous being residing underneath the Monastery — a monster that can summon other monsters to it. I know your father is capable, as are the other Professors, but surely even they will not be prepared for such a thing!”

“But that doesn’t...” argues Byleth, but trails off when she considers the implications of such a thing existing. _Those beasts, and that shadow—_

“Doesn’t what?” inquires Flayn, head tilted in askance. Byleth shakes her head decisively.

“Nevermind. You’re right, they won’t be ready for something like that. But... how are we getting there?” she asks instead.

Flayn mulls it over, chewing on her lip thoughtfully. “Well...” she begins hesitantly. “Rhea has told me to never speak of it to anyone, but there _is_ a secret passageway...”

* * *

Constance likes to think she moves akin to the water underneath a bridge; terrifyingly swift and merciless, ever-eager to wash away the slightest trace of what falls into her clutches from the world above. But if she is the river, then the Abyss is a barrage at its end; ever-restricting her range of motion, perpetually commandeering the waters of her destiny. What she wouldn’t give to be free, just once... _I may not deserve such a gift, of course, but the mere thought of being as a carefree leaf, floating away in the—_

“—and then Hapi said it was all pointless anyway,” the girl continues nattering through her thoughts, “but Yuri said I shouldn’t listen to talk like that because it would make me frown too much so I decided not to but then Balthus said frowns look really fierce and it makes all the boys, um, _swoon_? I don’t even know what a swoon is and now I’m so confused... what does everyone want?!”

“Quite so,” replies Constance absently, focusing on the delicate needlework of magic twisted into the ceiling of the room that serves to breathe life into the illusions that hide this place from the surface. Goodness, how droll... to be forced to listen to such uncouth rambling while she focuses on the most cardinal of her duties to keep the residents of Abyss safe. Can’t the girl see—

_What nonsense! It is nothing more than the deepest honour for one as lowly as I to bear the burdens of another — I do so gladly, for nothing could be more—_

“You’re... you’re not listening, are you,” realises the child, an odd warble to her tone. Constance pauses in her efforts to simultaneously combat herself while casting her magic and looks up, but she evidently takes too long to do so; the girl is staring at her with a look of abject _hurt_ , and she sniffles only once before turning and running away with a muffled _sob_.

Constance twists her mouth as she returns to her work, now even angrier at herself. She is far too poised to mutter, but her thoughts lambaste her lamentable actions all the same:

_How hard was it to pause for five seconds and reassure the child? Such boorish conduct, and I take pride in calling myself a noble? A seven year old child makes me lose my patience, and yet I dare delude myself into believing—_

“What a scoundrel,” intrude the dulcet tones of Yuri into her self-flagellation. “Imagine my surprise when one of the kids comes running up to me and promises me that she’ll hate Miss Constance _forever and ever_ because she’s just so _mean_.”

Constance huffs as she finishes placing the last key that guarantees the safety of Abyss, unwilling to cede the notion despite how truthful the sting of his words is.

“I — she hardly allowed me a moment to explain,” she grits out when she turns to face Yuri, realising he will not let her evade the conversation. “It is difficult enough work without having to waste energy sustaining meaningless chatter, you do realise!”

“I do,” replies Yuri blandly. “But last I checked I wasn’t five years old, so I somehow doubt I’m the one you should be explaining that to. Tsk. Thought you were nobler than that, Shady Lady.”

Constance bristles at the rebuke. “ _Do not_ call me that,” she growls, shoving past him to exit the room. He follows doggedly, of course, so she snaps a, “And she is _seven_ years old,” at him for good measure as she stalks her way down to the marketplace.

“Right, seven,” parrots Yuri, with an infuriating smirk on his face that leads her to realise he had intentionally misspoken. “See, you _do_ care!”

She huffs again, but does not deign to grace him with a retort. There are better uses for her time, at present moment; there is a battle to prepare for, because three Professors from the Officer’s Academy — as Hapi has reported the illusory trap has ensnared — will not be easy to disarm no matter how good her magic may be.

“Did you find anything?” asks Constance instead. “From your...” her mouth twists in displeasure, “ _contacts_? Or, perhaps, that little ploy of yours with the false assassination threat?”

“Not a thing,” says Yuri, frowning. “Not that I expected news of that letter to draw someone like him out, but it’s like he vanished into thin air after that... _weird_ business at the mausoleum. But don’t think I didn’t notice you trying to change the subject, there.”

Constance allows him a begrudging concession. “I will apologise to the girl,” she agrees, mounting her best efforts at not gritting her teeth as she speaks the words. Yuri only beams cheekily in response, and stops with folded arms next to her as she halts momentarily in her angry stride to take in the sights of the marketplace — mostly in an effort to not let herself wallow in the smugness of his demeanour for too long.

The shabby stalls that crowd the area can hardly be deemed a proper _marketplace_ , of course, and the rough-housing rabble that grace them are no more pleasing to the eye. Their features are all hooded by the hazy torchlight that barely makes this place worthy of being called a dwelling — though the dull light does much to conceal the centuries of grime that coats the walls and the rough stone ground upon which Abyss stands. The din of muttered haggling follows vicious buyer and cruel seller alike, and covers the area in a blanket of harsh noise that lends a quiet tone of desperation to the assault on the senses this place represents. The forbidding odour of damp mould completes the image, and makes Constance wishes briefly that she had found a nicer-smelling home — penniless and disgraced though she has been for so long.

At least her superior grasp of magic means she can still enjoy heated baths. She is quite certain she would have lost her mind long ago without that small luxury.

_Even a creature like me must remain clean so I do not spread my filth,_ agrees her mind in rare fashion.

“Penny for your thoughts?” intrudes Yuri again, somehow producing the proverbial penny and presenting it to her with a flourish. She frowns as she takes it, scrutinising him closely. He is wearing his usual beguiling smile, as is customary for him, and yet... why is he being so...

“You’re following me,” realises Constance slowly and with no dearth of surprise.

“Well, yeah,” agrees Yuri mildly, looking around briefly as if surprised she is referring to him and not someone else entirely. “Not sure why else I’d be here.”

“No, no, you misunderstand,” replies Constance, still bewildered by her realisation. “You’re _following_ me. You’re... letting me lead?”

Yuri blinks in surprise, and then laughs. “You know, Constance,” he says, grinning as he leads her gently by the arm to the shadowed entrance that leads deeper into the part of Abyss that lies uninhabited. “You look around a lot and you always look like you’re thinking pretty deep thoughts when you do, but... heh. You really don’t _see_ much, do you?”

“I am... not certain what I am meant to see,” replies Constance hesitantly, looking around at the fading noise and listening to the slowly thinning crowd as they pass through the clamour into a quieter corner.

“Look closer, then,” says Yuri, stopping and turning before they step through into the network of tunnels that holds their visitors from the Officer’s Academy. “Those merchants?” he says, pointing to a stall bearing two men hawking some odd spherical contraptions. “They’re sharks to the core, and any light-fearing person down here should have shied away from them... but they’re surrounded by people who wouldn’t have a chance at getting those rare goods otherwise because _your_ illusions make sure they’ll never know where _here_ really is.

“That old woman, teaching those kids?” he continues, pointing at a hunched old lady wielding a small canvas and surrounded by children. “She’s the type to live in fear of what the Church might do to her if they found out about whatever they might label this — spreading heresy, maybe? But she’s here because _your_ magic lets her and everyone like her find the way and leave safely, and those kids get to learn joys they might never have known otherwise, even down here in this pile of junk. All those cast aside and forgotten, like us,” he whirls dramatically, spreading his arms like the wings of a mockingbird he denies being, “and all those who never even got a fair chance, like those children... _you_ keep them safe here. Sure, I go around keeping everyone from the surface in line, and Balthus wrangles all these scoundrels into place and makes sure they don’t make trouble, and Hapi keeps the monsters and everything else away... but we wouldn’t have a chance at it without you.”

Constance stares at him, and then out at the thrum of life that blooms against the steepest odds in the harsh, unloving darkness.

For once, her mind is utterly silent.

“So, in the face of all that, and also knowing that we’re pretty much completely reliant on your magic to get the answers we need from these Professors,” finishes Yuri with a shrug, “I think I’d be a damned fool to _not_ have you lead this one.”

“Of course,” says Constance faintly, struggling to not let the tremor in her heart bleed through to her voice. “It seems only right that my indomitable grasp of magic be recognised, after all — the last of House Nuvelle deserves no less!”

_Am I really so... needed?_

“Sure,” agrees Yuri, smirking at her knowingly as she averts her gaze and marches forward into the gloom. “I’d say it’s more _you_ and less Nuvelle, but... let’s go with that.”

“Yeah, let’s,” booms a deeper voice that falls into step with her as Yuri scuttles through the rickety-looking gate that leads into an entirely uncharted depth of darkness. “Fancy running into you two here, pals.”

“Balthus!” faux-cheers Yuri, bumping fists with him as Constance nods politely in greeting. “Did you finally manage to sort out that business with our missing patron saint? The local rogues spot him in the wild, maybe? Or, perhaps, his mysterious alter-ego?”

“Feelin’ funny today, are ya?” grouses Balthus sourly as Constance resumes navigating the labyrinthine tunnels, letting the threads of her magic pull them gently in the correct direction. “Not a chance, pal. He’s vanished like our chances of laying low after the stunt we pulled for him. Which is to say, not a trace of him around — gone just as quickly as he showed up.”

“I had a feeling,” murmurs Yuri pensively. “Oh, well. Hopefully that sword-looking thing he stole wasn’t too important.”

Constance pauses in her march to fix him with the most incredulous stare she can muster.

“I was _joking_ ,” says Yuri, raising his hands defensively when even Balthus shakes his head at him. “I get it, I get it, I’ll tone it down for now.”

“Yes, perhaps this is not _quite_ the moment,” advises Constance frostily, before turning to resume her trek into the dark.

The silence her words leave is unbroken by much of anything except the _clack-clack_ of their boots upon the hard bedrock of the tunnel, until Balthus poses a question that has oft been dancing at the forefronts of all their minds.

“What’d you think he’s gonna do with it?” he asks unusually quietly, as if afraid of the answer he will get. “Or, well, she...”

Constance wishes she had an explanation ready for him other than a frown and a shake of her head. “What _couldn’t_ one accomplish with the most powerful Hero’s Relic to ever exist?” she asks rhetorically.

“You’d have to find someone to wield it first, though, yeah?” replies Balthus, scratching his head. “Nemesis has been dead for longer than even this place has been a thing, and I don’t remember ever hearing about any kids he had...”

“Yes, because we’ve never heard of long-thought-extinct Crests appearing out of nowhere, before,” says Yuri dryly, making Constance involuntarily let out an embarrassingly loud snort.

“Let’s hope us Wolves are unique in that, then, and that us getting duped by some two-bit Church flunkey pretending to be a demon witch doesn’t cause the end of the world or something,” chuckles Balthus, the sound of his laughter trailing off nervously as Constance suddenly slows in her relentless drive forward into the depths of Abyss. “Right...?”

She waves him off impatiently; his words are certainly liable to jinx something, but they are not the source of her concern. The problem seems markedly less visible than that — literally, because the darkness around her doesn’t feel quite as... defined as it ought to be. There is a curious heaviness to the air, and a faint smell of something... burning? Constance feels out the web of magic and lies unseen that she has painstakingly woven into the walls of Abyss around her, and checks on the singular thread of magic in the web that she is following. It still appears to lead to the darkness of the tunnel ahead of her, as it should, but why is it when she tugs at it, she feels as if it will—

_Snap_.

“Snap,” echoes Yuri. “Um, friends, not to alarm you, but—”

“I know, I know,” cuts Constance irritably, eyes shut tightly to aid in her concentration. “It appears as if something is interfering with my magic — I hardly imagined I could have erred in my construction of it, but perhaps...”

“And indeed you did not,” offers a kindly new voice. “It was superbly conceived — why, I daresay it was a masterwork of magical prowess!”

Constance snaps her eyes open in shock, and finds that the darkness of the tunnel ahead of her has resolved into sharp, horrifying, unexpected _colour_.

The colour reveals the source of the voice praising her magic — the form of a greying, distinguished-looking scholar with a tome of glowing magic in his hand and a ball of light hovering behind him. The colour reveals, too, the form of a lithe, elegantly dressed woman some ways behind him, standing over the charred husk of a slain monster.

And, chilling her blood, the colour reveals finally the form of a large, armoured man at the forefront of the group, with a stern expression on his bearded face and a smooth, glinting blade in his gloved hand — a blade that hovers precariously close to the neck of a woman with hair of candy-red who stands with shoulders slumped and hands bound in front of her by inky magical restraints.

_How did she — why is she—_

“Sorry, Coco,” apologises Hapi morosely. “They were a bit too quick on the uptake.”

“That’s okay,” replies Constance lowly, every facet of her being outraged at the sight of the blade held to her dear friend’s throat. “I find myself wanting to breathe a _sigh_ of relief at finding you unharmed, at the least.”

Hapi, to her credit, doesn’t even twitch at the signal, even as Constance hears Balthus shift slightly from behind her. “Thanks. I’m a little disappointed at how little I was harmed, to be honest,” returns Hapi, shrugging a shoulder. “Grizzles here didn’t even break a sweat before he got this shiny sword against my throat. Guess you gotta be pretty good at fighting to be a Professor at the Academy, huh?”

“You’ll get there, kid,” commiserates the armoured man in a surprisingly gentle rumble, considering his terrifyingly towering stature and assuredly hostile stance. “Could have asked for lessons nicely, though. Why the cloak-and-dagger business?”

“I told you, the explanation is too long,” says Hapi with a deep, put-upon sigh. “Ask your damned Archbishop if you really need to know — we just don’t really have the time for that kinda thing right now.”

“We don’t?” queries the elegantly dressed woman in falsely-honeyed tones, her eyes roving over Balthus curiously. “I do _wonder_ what kinds of pre-commitments one would find down here...”

“You’d be surprised,” offers Yuri with a grim smile. “The shadows allow for all kinds of... _activity_ to remain unnoticed, after all.”

“Yeah,” agrees Balthus with a crack of his knuckles, as the inevitable rumble of the shadows of the night thundering down the tunnels finally reaches their ears. “It gets pretty busy down here, sometimes.”

* * *

Byleth eyes the dilapidated tunnel with far less hesitation than she perhaps should, and Flayn reconsiders the wisdom of her idea that had seemed far grander in the light of day than it does down here in the suffocating dark.

“Erm, upon further consideration,” begins Flayn nervously. “Perhaps this idea of ours is not the best.”

“It isn’t?” wonders Byleth from where she walks just ahead and to her right. “I thought it was pretty neat, myself.”

Flayn frowns as she considers the damp, musty tunnels they are steadily losing themselves in. Byleth’s eyes sparkle gently in the flickering firelight she has summoned to light their way, and her strides remain quick and purposeful even as Flayn twitches anxiously at every out-of-place sound in this strange, dream-like gloom that threatens constantly to swallow the edges of their light. Her manner certainly betrays no lack of confidence in their quest — and Flayn knows _that_ is what worries her more than anything else.

“I may have agreed with that when we began our journey here,” concedes Flayn, “but the thought of our message not being acted upon with the requisite haste is... worrying. We have no idea when we may chance upon that monster!”

Byleth’s eyes cut to Flayn in their usual, deliberate way; they remain on her for a stretched-out moment, and then return calmly to the path ahead.

“I trust Sothis,” reassures Byleth evenly, a small smile blooming on her face at whatever she had seen in Flayn’s tense gait. “Her sense of timing is actually pretty exceptional.”

Flayn’s frown deepens, but she does not reply except to silently ruminate on the woman walking next to her. After all, she has long been relegated to the role of the observer — her father is always loth to let her out of his ever-careful sight, and most times Rhea is not much better. The Monastery, though, cannot be kept from her; she may dither and deflect on her turn to perform the rite of reciprocity in the subtle art of friendship, perhaps, but her fear of opening her heart does not extend to her eyes. All manner of interesting characters walk by that eagerly watching sight, then; they fill her days of lakeside blue and sunset gold with _much_ needed splashes of hues she often does not realise she wants to see until she has danced away their time at the Officer’s Academy with them.

And then they leave and take their dazzling colour with them, and Flayn wonders if she should have gotten to know them better. If she had bared her true self even the slightest amount more, perhaps the hues of those that walked by her would have become the slightest amount more vibrant. And perhaps then her eternal fear of falling into the endless void of sleep would have been dulled, and she would no longer be shackled by the talons of her own unending past because surely the colour splashed onto the fabric of her mind would have woken her up with its eye-searing sparkle.

So she had decided to try, upon meeting in Byleth Eisner a friend who could know her as _her_ , Flayn and Cethleann and the nameless woman she is underneath both her lives. Flayn bared her love — for fish, certainly, but for the cool waters of the lake and the warm hues of the sun, too — and then discovered in it a rush that she could not have let go of if she had ever wanted to. So she had bared her fears, too, chasing after the thrill of _vulnerability_ , speaking casually of those dark depths of her being not even her father is privy to — and Byleth had, with easy smile and gentle sparkle, absorbed all the cowardice and irrational anxiety that dripped so profusely from the grimiest reaches of her mind.

And in doing so, Byleth had changed _not even slightly_. Flayn has felt _herself_ shift (in ways she is not quite ready to explore yet), but even so Byleth is — frustratingly, amazingly, and even ridiculously — the exact _same_ as she had been that day she’d stepped into the Monastery wide-eyed and excited to find a new place to fish, gorging herself on a feast of crabs as she had.

Flayn wonders, not for the first time when Byleth is involved, if this is another one of those life lessons her father often tells her she is lacking while refusing to elaborate on what they actually are. She does feel lighter for having opened up, certainly, but...

“How do you keep up?” wonders Flayn aloud.

“The fabric,” replies Byleth slowly, but with a tone of great certainty. “Or, I suppose, the web.”

Flayn blinks.

“When I have a spell I want to cast,” elaborates Byleth, perhaps sensing Flayn’s confusion, “I think of it as threading a needle. A thread of a certain colour will look a certain way, and combine in a certain other way with another thread. But I always know how the fabric will look. And if I always know the shape of the fabric, then does it matter what shade of thread or bore of needle I choose to sew with? I can only use what I have, sure, but as long as it fits the shape it needs to...”

“I... that does make a great deal of sense,” breathes Flayn. “So you make sure not to forget who you are, and what makes you _you_. And then whoever you meet along the way that might change you... they _do_ change you, but you make that change _yours_.”

Byleth slows in her stride, turning her head to Flayn fully this time with a look of surprise. “I didn’t know we were having that kind of conversation,” she admits, sheepishly scratching her neck. “I’m not very good at keeping track of layers.”

“I must admit to being much the same,” confesses Flayn, giggling lightly at her own expense. “Even so, I think you do better than you might know.” Byleth smiles wider at her, then speeds up again.

“What might the web be, though?” queries Flayn curiously. “If we are to speak of spellwork, I mean.”

“You lose definition, but it stretches much longer,” says Byleth simply. “There’s a lot of illusory webs, here. It’s — I’ve come across the idea, before, but everything I’ve ever wanted to hide has always been much smaller than the entire underbelly of a Monastery, so it never made much sense for me to study. But looking at this...” she trails off, waving an absent shimmering hand through the air that leaves behind a barely glowing residue of magic. The glow settles gently into infinitesimally thin, branching lines of what truly appears to be a web that stretches all around them, leaving a dancing trail, “I would _love_ to meet whoever had the idea. They must really like spiders...”

“Even small bugs can—” starts Flayn in a pondering tone, then pauses when she faintly hears an odd... _grinding_ noise. “What is _that_?”

Byleth slows to a stop next to her, too, and tilts her head to listen. For a long moment, nothing is plainly obvious — but Flayn slowly realises the sound had only been the precursor to a deeper, more rhythmic _rumbling_ that seems to subtly shake the very walls around them. Byleth frowns — and then her eyes widen in alarm.

“Fire,” breathes Byleth, breaking into a sudden sprint that leaves Flayn struggling to catch up.

“What — what do you — mean?” pants Flayn, barely keeping her balance on the sharp turns. “Fire?”

“That is the sound of a _massive_ fire,” replies Byleth, barely even out of breath. “It’s definitely—”

“Other way, kid!” roars the sudden, surprised voice of Jeralt as the three Professors rush out of a tunnel past them, and Flayn peers into the distant darkness behind them to see—

—a veritable _horde_ of giant, _flaming_ beasts loping towards them, with a group of four people running just ahead of the fiery monsters who Flayn has never seen before and who seem to be wearing the strangest garb, and who also—

—sling bolts of magic at her that Byleth barely blocks with a hastily constructed shimmering gold Barrier and a wince.

Flayn allows herself another brief moment to absorb the astonishing sight, and then turns tail to follow the Professors that have long rushed past them.

“Why are the monsters _on fire_?!” screams Flayn at nobody in particular, even as Byleth pulls at her arm to drag them both back along the way they had so painstakingly charted through the darkness.

“Ahahaha!” screams one of their demented pursuers, even as Flayn does her best to cast her own barriers to slow the barrage of spells that rain on their backs. “The might of the Ashen Wolves and House Nuvelle at their head surpasses even the Church, it seems!”

“Not sure we’re surpassing anything right now!” shouts another one. “The monsters are chasing after _us_ too, y’know?!”

Byleth switches to Flayn’s left side, and casually slings a jet of Wind behind her. “What’s an Ashen Wolf?” she asks Flayn quietly in the momentary silence it affords them.

“I — have — no — idea,” rasps Flayn as she continues running through her struggle to inhale as much air as possible.

“I’m afraid — I was — overzealous!” calls Professor Hanneman in reply from where he sprints ahead of them.

(Seeing him so obviously out of breath bolsters Flayn’s spirit greatly.)

“They seem,” considers Byleth as Jeralt slows slightly to allow them to catch up, throwing a ball of fire that sails over their heads in the direction of their their pursuers as he does for good measure, “really determined.”

Professor Hanneman slows momentarily in his jog to aid Byleth in her spellcasting, which lets Professor Manuela pause, too, to join forces with Flayn and construct a much hardier Fortification that finally blocks the deluge of spells aimed in their direction.

Byleth pats Flayn’s back in sympathy as they all finally get a moment to halt their frenzied sprint, and she clutches her ribs and gulps in lungfuls of sweet, precious life-giving _air_ —

The rumbling growl of a gigantic beast from ahead of them freezes her mid-breath.

From the darkness, it emerges — larger and with a more terrifying maw than any Flayn has ever seen since she awakened. This beast is not aflame like the smaller ones behind her, but it is no less threatening in the weight of its steps as it stalks almost leisurely towards their group. Byleth tenses, and Professor Hanneman begins to prepare a spell—

“The Ashen Wolves propose a momentary truce!” screams the demented woman from behind them. Flayn turns back in surprise—

“And to the one treading along my illusions — yes, you!” continues the woman when Byleth hesitantly points to herself in surprise, as she sprints at them with the flaming beasts at her back. “Weave my web around yourselves to your left, and I shall do so to our right — it can hide us from the beasts! And from each other, so we shall forego our need for hostility!”

Byleth blinks, then nods firmly and gathers a shimmering pool of magic into her left hand. It coalesces into a globe that surrounds their group slowly, even as the terrifying beast in front of them advances and the ones behind them thunder ever closer—

—and then the beast in front of them evaporates into thin air, and then _part of the roof of the tunnel collapses_ into the space remaining between where Flayn stands and where the ones calling themselves the Ashen Wolves suddenly glide to a standstill.

Jeralt drags Flayn and Byleth back by their clothes just in time to save them from parts of the collapsing ceiling descending on them, coughing at the dust and debris that rises in great pillowy plumes from the sudden wreckage.

Flayn does not hear another whisper of the beasts that had been aflame, and neither does she hear the rumble of their burning fire.

“My sincerest condolences for the treachery,” laughs the woman in reply to her thoughts, her silhouette now barely visible through the blocked-off tunnel. “We’ve decided you couldn’t possibly be of much use to us, after all.”

“But as a token of gratitude for your assistance in sealing off this entrance,” adds the pretty, purple-haired Ashen Wolf, peeking through a gap in the collapsed tunnel, “You might want to know about a man named Aelfric claiming he’s from the Church, and going around wearing the skin of a murderous demon lady.”

“Aelfric?” startles Jeralt with a look of surprise. “I heard about his _death_ , and a long time ago at that...”

“Yeah?” grunts the messy-haired man lowly, his tall form letting him peek over the rubble. “Sounds like he found his second wind, then. Or maybe the demon lady dug open his grave and found it for him...”

“Demon or saint, whoever it is dug open Seiros’ grave and found themselves a shiny-looking Sword of the Creator, too,” adds the tan-skinned woman, peeking through another gap in the rubble and winking at them. “You probably already knew that, but if you didn’t — well, that oughta ruffle your bonnets.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I RETURN
> 
> not 100% happy with how i had to handle this chapter unfortunately (what with the lack of cool fight scenes and all) but anything more would kinda ruin lots of other things to come later on, so... this is how it is, for now. i'll give the wolves a more, er... in-depth shimmy into the thick of things later, at a point when they won't actively destroy the pacing of absolutely everything
> 
> also i promise quick updates in literally every end note because I work 100x better with deadlines so imma do it again, but just know if i dont make the next 1 week deadline i tried my absolute hardest and if i'm late it will only be because i need a break from the insane past one month. story will never be abandoned, i promise!


	21. Mask of Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Friends and enemies alike head towards a dark tower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: late updates, fluff-as-a-bribe
> 
> actual cw: graphic violence, depictions of torture from the line that starts with "and gets a painful" to the line that starts with "sweet, blissful"

A spike of pain, smouldering.

_what_

A heart charred, unbeating.

_is_

A fleshy squelch, skin knitting together.

_my_

A hand unmarred, reaching for—

_purpose_

A question, relentless and burning.

...

A smile from a shadow, binding red blood and black heart.

_Bathe the world in flame._

* * *

“Sorry, sorry!” exclaims Mercedes, dashing past a surprised Raphael on her way to the Blue Lions classroom.

Professor Jeralt, yesterday, had called a meeting for today to address their new mission — and had _insisted_ , eyeing Mercedes warily, that everyone be present for the tactical discussion. She had taken his direction seriously — of course she had! — and had begged Annette to wake her up on time. Annette, bless her heart, had done so exactly an hour after dawn with a merry song in her voice and a wide smile on her face, and then skipped away happily to do some gardening.

Gardening which Mercedes very regretfully had had to excuse herself from, because she had also predicted (with accuracy born of long experience with herself) that she would then forget to eat a hearty breakfast to keep her energised for her sword duels that day. So she, in all the best of intentions, had contracted a very nice monk from the Cathedral to tap her on the shoulder on her way to offer up her morning prayers to the Goddess to remind her to eat something. He had (hesitantly) done so, and she’d thanked him before rushing off to fill her stomach, which had long been protesting its emptiness with an unheard grumble.

In the process, she’d forgotten her bag of training clothes at the Cathedral.

_That,_ considers Mercedes as she jogs past the stables, _might have been the beginning of my undoing._

She’d realised her folly as soon as she had found herself in the training arena facing Felix, who had firmly let her know how little he thought of her misstep by throwing her — oh, the most adorable of disdainful glares! But sparring with Felix is a daunting task at the best of times, let alone without a proper outfit, so she had very regretfully excused herself again with a hurried apology and sprinted back in the direction of the Cathedral.

_Maybe I should have offered a clearer explanation before I rushed off…_

Armed with the heady haste of having a goal firmly in mind, Mercedes had been well on her way to saving herself from a day of watching Felix sulk — as cute as it might have been. But to her misfortune, she’d barely made it halfway to her destination before coming across a wizened Knight of Seiros with hair a shade of very _particular_ fiery ginger that had made her forget both her impending training bout and her abandoned bag of clothes.

And now, one hour later, Mercedes is late to her meeting because she had been trying to (discreetly) interrogate the man who she is almost completely certain is Annette’s long-lost father for the past three hours, and only the sight of Professor Manuela exiting her infirmary with Dorothea in tow had reminded her that she had a Professor of her own to get to.

“I’m so sorry, Professor!” exclaims Mercedes as soon as she has pushed open the doors of her classroom with a clumsy stumble.

Her entire class turns back to her with varying degrees of surprise, worry, and amusement painted on their faces, and Mercedes feels her heart — and face — warm at their concern as Professor Jeralt squints at her suspiciously for barely a moment before relenting with a grumble.

“We’re just starting,” he replies, gesturing vaguely at a vacant bench Mercedes gratefully shimmies herself onto. “Our mission for this month has been assigned by the Archbishop at the request of the Kingdom of Faerghus…”

Mercedes briefly takes her eyes off of his unusually grave countenance to look at Annette, who looks so infectiously _content_ at the moment it breaks her heart to know she will be the one to remove that expression from her face by telling her of her father’s return — or of his unwillingness to even speak to his daughter—

“…and Lord Rodrigue arrived to request that the Church take care of the bandits at the edge of House Fraldarius’ territory — bandits he has surmised are commanded by a man named Miklan.”

Mercedes jerks her head back to the Professor in shock, only registering the true weight of his words several beats after he has spoken them. Felix doesn’t seem to approve of his father’s actions much at the best of times, and the man’s presence here must agitate the usually dour teen to dangerous levels. Mercedes turns around as discreetly as she can manage, and finds Felix frowning deeply at... at Sylvain?

_What?_

“What?” echoes Ingrid, concern etched into every line of her face. “Professor, that — that name, are you sure it’s—”

“I wouldn’t doubt it’s him,” cheerily interrupts Sylvain before the Professor can do much more than open his mouth in reply. “My idiot of a brother has always been somewhat of a… black sheep of the family, as it goes.”

Mercedes joins her classmates in staring at Sylvain, who crosses his arms and shrugs to pretend he is unaffected.

“That might explain why he’s also stolen the Lance of Ruin from House Gautier, then,” rumbles the Professor. “Hence Lord Rodrigue requiring the assistance of the Church.”

The classroom does not make a single sound for five entire beats of Mercedes’ heart — before it explodes into a veritable cacophony of sound.

“Professor! Surely that cannot be—” begins Dimitri, but he is quickly drowned out by several competing voices in rapid succession.

“He did _what_?! Wait, no, of course that idiot decided to—”

“—stop being so stubborn about—”

“He’s still your _family_ , Sylvain, and don’t you dare try to act unaffected—”

“—you need to stop sulking. I don’t even know why that man decided to come here and _beg_ —”

“You... you saw him? At the Monastery? _Here?!_ He’s... I’ve finally found him! Mercie, thank you so much—”

“—Your Highness, you should not worry about—”

Mercedes considers her House and the various sounds of distress around her, then comes to an entirely unsurprising conclusion.

_We need a distraction._

* * *

“You need,” announces Sothis, marching in through the doors of Edelgard’s room without a care in the world, “a distraction.”

“I _need_ ,” stresses Edelgard without looking up from her writing, “to pass my certification exam.”

“I thought you’d say something like that again,” remarks Sothis ominously. “Which is why, this time... enter, reinforcement.”

Edelgard pauses, quill poised a hair’s breadth above the parchment. The only _reinforcement_ with the slightest chance of changing her mind would be... but surely he would not agree to—

“I do hate to agree with her,” sighs Hubert as he strides in with nary a noise but that of Edelgard feeling her hopes of completing her revision drown, “but she is unfortunately correct on this count, Lady Edelgard. You have been studying the material for five days now... I cannot imagine there is anything left that these worthless books can _possibly_ teach someone of your capability, or that there is any test you could not succeed at.”

Edelgard sighs, sets her quill down, and glares at the thick sheaf of parchment she has barely managed to fill over the course of an entire day. Then she spins her chair around to fix the intruders into her domain with a baleful stare, not bothering to stand.

“Fine,” accepts Edelgard with a resigned grimace, making Sothis beam and Hubert smirk. “What... _distraction_... did you have in mind?”

Hubert’s smirk fades as he sends an uncertain look at Sothis. “We... hadn’t quite reached that point in our plan yet,” he admits, floundering. A rarity for him, indeed, and yet Sothis looks terribly, dangerously _certain_ —

“As it so happens, actually,” she begins confidently, each subsequent word sending increasing tremors of apprehension through Edelgard. “I _did_ have a plan. In multiple stages, even!”

Edelgard blinks, curiosity momentarily overtaking her dread, which Sothis takes as a sign to continue with a clearing of her throat and a grand flourishing gesture of her hand:

“First,” she intones dramatically, “we attend an audience at the Cathedral, which is in the process of hosting a guest I think you’ll find very interesting. Then, we go to a meeting with your fellow House Leader, who may be in need of some invaluable assistance. And finally, we look at some... well, I’ll have to show you, but they’re quite _something_.”

Edelgard takes a moment to process the implications behind the words, even as Hubert makes no secret of his disdain and sends Sothis a disgusted look.

“I cannot stress enough how much any of that would _not_ ,” stresses Hubert, “be a pleasant distraction.”

Sothis sighs, her smile vanishing into an expression of gloom that does something decidedly strange to Edelgard’s stomach. “Look, I know — distracting her with more work isn’t healthy for anyone involved,” she admits. “But,” she eyes Edelgard with her doleful stare, “the dear Lady here refused to even go eat some absolutely delicious peach sorbet earlier! _Peach,_ ” she jabs a finger in Edelgard’s direction that seems to strike directly at her sorely regretful palate as penance for the mistakes she has clearly made, “ _sorbet_!”

“I—” begins Edelgard defensively, but falters when Hubert gives her a look of something that hovers dangerously between horror and _pity_. “I was in the middle of an important chapter,” she finishes lamely.

Sothis crosses her arms incredulously, and Edelgard decides to cut her losses and accept defeat as gracefully as she possibly can at this point and stands, brushing imaginary lint from her shoulder and clearing her throat.

“Shall we?” offers Edelgard to the conspirators, smiling as beatifically as she can muster.

Sothis rolls her eyes with a fond smile.

“I will leave you to it, my Lady,” offers Hubert with a bow, surprising Edelgard — and Sothis, if her raised brow is any indication — to no end. “There are... matters I must attend to.”

“Wow,” says Sothis after he leaves, staring at the spot he vacated. “I feel... strangely touched by his trust in our ability.”

Edelgard only hums sagely, electing to not mention the long, _long_ conversations she has had with Hubert on the matter.

Sothis draws herself out of her musings with a shake of her head, then reaches absently for Edelgard’s hand as they turn to leave her room.

Edelgard tries her hardest to will away the dull heat that immediately springs to her cheeks at the gesture, even though — _even though we’ve already gone beyond just that, and yet—_

“Sothis,” says Edelgard slowly just as Sothis is about to push open the door. Sothis stops and looks back at her questioningly, and Edelgard hesitates before leaning in to speak lowly, “We, ah... haven’t quite discussed this,” she squeezes the hand holding hers meaningfully, “since that night in much detail.”

Sothis looks back at her with a blush and... a confused expression? “I thought we did, um, _discuss_ it,” she replies hesitantly, averting her eyes and staring rather intently at a spot somewhere near Edelgard’s right shoulder.

Edelgard blinks, trying to think back — _when did we... the only thing I can remember doing with her since then is_ —

_Oh._

“Oh,” squeaks Edelgard, her face suddenly aflame as she remembers their _discussions_. “I — I meant, ah, no, not _that_. No, just — what are we, exactly?”

“Oh,” echoes Sothis, tilting her head slightly as her blush fades and she considers the question. “I’m not sure, if I’m honest,” she muses thoughtfully. “I realise you likely have an entire host of suitors after you — who I will gladly fend off, but who you might need to keep appeased until I can, so...” she trails off meaningfully, then raises her eyebrows at Edelgard’s gobsmacked expression. “Am I not to be a secret paramour, then?”

With great effort, Edelgard reseats her jaw and shakes her head. _Until she can fend them off... does she realise the only way she can manage that is to — does she realise what her offer means...?_

“That could have been a wonderful idea,” begins Edelgard, deciding not to think too deeply on the matter — then breaks into a sudden, rueful chuckle as she leans forward suddenly to peck Sothis briefly on the lips. She can still hardly believe that she can actually _do_ something like this now, but she still thoroughly enjoys the way Sothis’ cheeks burn at the gesture. _She can say the most heartfelt things without a care in the world, but who knew she could be so adorably embarrassed by a simple kiss?_

“El...” whispers Sothis sweetly after they break apart, and Edelgard beams at the warmth she feels from the earnest use of her nickname as she strides out of her room spiritedly, Sothis stumbling in her wake.

“Why isn’t it a good idea?” asks Sothis curiously after she has recovered, just as they descend the stairs to leave the dormitory.

Edelgard doesn’t slow in her stride even as she steps out and the cool afternoon breeze scatters her hair, and hopes Sothis doesn’t pay too much mind to her flushed face as she admits softly, “I could never hide _you_ away.”

* * *

“Well,” opines Sothis mildly as they leave the Cathedral, “he’s certainly... not what I imagined.”

“A stalwart champion of the nobility,” replies Edelgard in a perfectly neutral tone. Only the sharpness of her eyes and the slight tightness at the corner of her mouth gives away her disapproval.

Sothis suppresses a smile. _With how deftly she normally hides her thoughts, it’s almost cute how she can barely keep her fiery passion contained now..._

“Sure,” agrees Sothis lightly, giving away none of her musings as the crisp wind gently caresses the side of her face. “I meant more how unlike his son he is, though.”

“Hmmm,” hums Edelgard. “Regardless, he still seemed to approve of you. Though perhaps not for the same reason Felix approves of you...”

Sothis shrugs, stepping closer to the parapet that lines the bridge and leaning gently against it as she surveys the land cooling rapidly underneath the encroaching winter. “We took a lot of missions in the Kingdom, back in the day,” she says, musing on winters long past. “Dad didn’t really like being there, for whatever reason — and especially not after the incident with Duscur. But the nobles definitely approved of our prowess... and the reputation might have stuck, it seems. I suppose Lord Rodrigue may be more like Felix than he seems at first glance.”

Edelgard huffs out a breath in amusement as she leans on the parapet next to Sothis and rests her chin on a gloved hand, purple eyes glimmering with some hidden amusement as she, too, gazes into the distance.

“Did you like it there?” wonders Edelgard quietly. “In the Kingdom, I mean?”

“It’s colder than everywhere else,” replies Sothis with a shrug, watching a hawk take flight. “Not that I mind, but it does mean they don’t have the sweetest of teeth. Having nothing to eat but salted meat and nothing to drink but melted snow gets tiring after a while.”

Edelgard huffs out a breath in amusement. “I remember you saying as much, when we first met,” she recalls. “Is that why you vowed to support my endeavours so wholeheartedly? So you could gorge yourself on the Empire’s unmatched selection of sweet treats?”

Sothis laughs warmly. “Could you blame me?” she asks rhetorically, then grins and nudges Edelgard’s shoulder playfully with hers as a thought occurs to her. “My secret plan was to obtain that sweetest of desserts found nowhere else, after all.”

“Oh?” wonders Edelgard, turning to face her. “What sweet dessert might that be?”

Sothis merely turns a cheeky smile at her and turns to walk back down the bridge into the Monastery’s reception hall, even as Edelgard chases after her with an annoyed huff. Edelgard’s curiosity is adorably catlike, she knows; she pretends to not be affected, at first, but betrays her interest with shifty glances that slowly turn into interested stares and eventually boil over into obsession as she _burns_ inside with the need to know—

Sothis spots who she is looking for, so she finally turns to meet Edelgard’s irritated glare with a sly wink and leans in to softly whisper, “You.”

Then she turns back around, deftly ignoring the choked whimper from behind her with a satisfied nod as she waves at Prince Dimitri from afar.

“Good afternoon,” greets Sothis when she has dragged a crimson-faced Edelgard over to the tall man. “My apologies if this sounds too blunt, but you appear to be somewhat... distressed.”

“Good afternoon to you both,” replies Dimitri earnestly, even though his spirits seem more dampened than usual. “You are correct on that count, I fear. Actually, I — forgive me, but are you alright, Edelgard? You appear to be unusually flushed... are you certain you aren’t catching cold?”

“I’m quite alright, thank you,” returns Edelgard with a perfectly level voice, a sincere smile, and cheeks that resemble her cape in colour. “The wind outside was just colder than usual today.”

“Ah, that is true,” agrees Dimitri. “I suppose it is time we must start dressing for frostier weather. I had hardly noticed, if I am to be honest... although such things are harder to notice when you’ve lived somewhere as cold as Fhirdiad all your life, I suppose.”

“You must have gotten used to it as a child,” muses Sothis conversationally, electing to ignore Edelgard’s glare of promised retribution. “Our mercenary company complained to no end when we visited a few years ago, though. I wonder how the Kingdom is, these days. Still just as cold?”

“Just as cold,” chuckles Dimitri, though his laugh quickly fades into a grimace. “But far more troubled, regretfully.”

“That does sound unfortunate,” sympathises Sothis genuinely. “What sorts of trouble, if I may ask?”

“Bandits,” sighs Dimitri morosely. “The petty squabbles and skirmishes with them never seem to end... although they’ve taken on a more dangerous tone, of late. A group of thieves have stolen a Hero’s Relic — the Lance of Ruin, from House Gautier, and set up camp in the lands of House Fraldarius. Our class has been assigned a mission to take care of them, but truthfully... the leader of the thieves who wields the relic is Sylvain’s brother. And while I trust Professor Jeralt to keep us from harm’s way, I worry about Sylvain and the rest of my class — being distracted in battle is deadly, but against a Hero’s Relic...”

“That seems—” begins Sothis delicately.

“—like a tough situation to be in,” interjects Edelgard, cutting her off smoothly. “I am sorry to hear it, Dimitri. In fact...” she says, trailing off thoughtfully, before something in her gaze firms and she continues decisively, “I would like to offer my support to your mission to eliminate the thieves plaguing the Kingdom.”

Sothis blinks in astonishment, then tries her hardest to keep her growing smile contained to a polite curve of her mouth rather than the ear-splitting grin she desperately wants it to be — even though she is sure her eyes give it away with how brightly they must be sparkling with pride. Dimitri glances between her and Edelgard in bewildered shock, and says hesitantly, “I — I would not wish to trouble you — it is a problem for the Kingdom, after all... and you have your own House to look after, besides.”

“Not at all,” disagrees Edelgard firmly, and Sothis barely suppresses a laugh at Dimitri’s resulting expression of shameful hope. “The Magdred incident proves that our Houses work best when we are in tandem, and I would like for the Kingdom and the Empire to foster a closer bond besides. The leaders of the Houses need to be able to work together for our Houses to do the same, and so... helping your House chase down some thieves is surely the least of what I can do to help, is it not?”

“Still,” argues Dimitri weakly. “I... your offer of support is greatly appreciated, Edelgard,” he says with a deep bow of his head. “I am in no position to refuse it, so I will not try. But once it is able... you need only call upon the Kingdom to repay the favour, and it will.”

“Nonsense,” parries Edelgard instantly. “This has nothing to do with the stations we hold, Dimitri. Call it... a favour for a friend, hm?”

“For a friend... very well, then,” concedes Dimitri. “I will not soon forget this kindness. You are a good person, Edelgard.”

Edelgard smiles at him in thanks, and Sothis sees a genuine thread of happiness shimmer in her eye that makes her own barely-suppressed smile inch a little wider.

“I’ll tag along too, if you don’t mind,” adds Sothis to save Edelgard from receiving too much more of Dimitri’s rather profuse thanks. “The more the merrier, I hope?”

“I doubt there will be much merriment,” replies Dimitri doubtfully, “when there is a Hero’s Relic to battle against.”

* * *

Edelgard watches curiously as Sothis pauses in front of the door to her room — then realises, suddenly, that she has never seen the woman’s quarters before. Most of their meetings (and more recently, _discussions_ ) are either in the Black Eagles classroom, or in her own room which she is used to keeping tidy for the occasional visitor.

Sothis seems to realise this too, if her suddenly nervous glance at Edelgard is any indication. She gingerly places a hand on the doorhandle, swallows roughly, and pushes open her door.

Edelgard’s jaw drops at what she finds inside.

The room is unremarkable in its construction, and entirely identical in shape and size to her own — and, indeed, identical to every other room assigned for the use of students at the Officer’s Academy. A thick stone window with coloured glass set into it lets faint light into the room, illuminating a patchy rug and the furniture that the hundreds of occupants of this room before Sothis would have seen in its less time-worn days. There is a single bed in the corner, several desks with heavy-bottomed drawers, a few shelves meant for decoration, and a desk with a bookshelf set into it. A large bulletin board completes the entirely mundane ensemble.

None of this is what surprises Edelgard — all of this is just as it is in the room she has been occupying since she joined the Academy. _The difference,_ she thinks in awe, _lies in how we decorate..._

The thick stone window can only let in faint light because the desks in front of it are _stacked_ with books — thick tomes with archaic titles, more modern entries with slimmer spines, and everything in between. They form a rich, enviable variety Edelgard has scarcely seen at the Imperial Library, let alone in Garreg Mach’s highly curated collection. But the towers of books do not stand on their own, because the spaces on most of the furniture that are not burdened with books hold a motley of _plants_ , instead — an even more vibrant and eye-searing assortment than the books they are nestled around, though Edelgard can scarcely believe it. Pots with carnations, pots with violets, pots with berries and ambrosia and unfurling vines of leaves that surround everything with hues deeper than Sothis’ eyes and blooms of colours she has never even read of before, much less seen—

“Can I move in here? Forever?” pleads Edelgard. Sothis blinks at her in surprise, though the nervous tension seems to melt away from her at the question.

“If you want,” replies Sothis with a dubious look, though there is a pleased undercurrent to her voice. “I’m not sure why you would, though... I would hesitate to even call it a mess because that might be a bit insulting to messes.”

“It is a mess,” acknowledges Edelgard, looking around in rapt fascination. “I have also never seen a mess that is more beautiful. Sothis, this — this place looks like a _painting_ , with colours I scarcely imagined could even be real! And these books! You’ve — I didn’t even know some of these still _existed_!”

“Well, I didn’t know you would like my humble dwelling this much, else I’d have invited you much sooner,” says Sothis, the happiness in her voice breaking into a smile on her face — though Edelgard barely catches the edge of it before she loses to the temptation to thumb open a copy of the mythical _Magick Moste Evile_ , the existence of which she has only ever heard faint rumours of. “Heh. I suppose it works well as a distraction, too.”

“I am very distracted,” agrees Edelgard in absent-minded wonder, barely able to believe the vibrant truth her eyes are searing into her mind as she swaps to a copy of _Mannimarco, King of Worms_ after a long moment of staring at the most _blue_ flower she has ever seen. “You should have just brought me here to begin with. How did you _get_ these books? And these plants... is it just my imagination, or are they all more vibrant than they have any right to be?”

“Ah, well,” begins Sothis haltingly. Edelgard raises an elegant brow when Sothis doesn’t quite meet her eyes as she searches for words. “The books are just what I always liked to request as payment for our various mercenary work, and most nobles have piles upon piles of long-forgotten lore they couldn’t care less about. As for the plants, they, um... they like it when I hum to them.”

Edelgard’s brows complete their ascent into her hair of their own accord.

“I can’t explain it,” says Sothis defensively. “But... it’s one of the things I said added up, before — why I so readily believed Rhea about who I am.”

“I can see it,” agrees Edelgard. Her suspension of disbelief has been hanging off the edge of a cliff lately, regardless — she supposes there must be stranger things in the world than a resurrected Goddess who realised her own divinity by virtue of singing plants to life, so there is hardly value in attempting to make sense of matters—

Her thoughts halt in their meandering when she spots something that does not look like it belongs in the chaos of the room. “Is that a blanket with a... fish on it?” she asks slowly, pointing.

Sothis blinks back, and then turns to where Edelgard is pointing at her bed. “Oh! Yes, it is,” she says with a fond smile at the rather lurid blue-green pile of cloth with a comically large fish sewn into it.

“A keepsake from my mother,” adds Sothis by way of explanation, her smile turning sadder. She pats the blanket almost lovingly—

—and pauses in concern when it makes a rather concerning _crinkle_ instead.

A shuffle in the folds of the blanket produces a roll of parchment, which Sothis bemusedly unfurls to read:

_“Dear Sothis,_

_Gone fishing._

_Love,_

_Seaweed.”_

“A coded message?” asks Edelgard hesitantly when Sothis only sighs at the note before setting it aside.

“It’s from Byleth,” replies Sothis absently, kneeling to reach at something underneath her bed. “Coded... well, it could be. I suppose it means she’s not coming along with us...”

“Could be?” wonders Edelgard quizzically. Sothis makes a noncommittal noise, and then scowls before she sticks her head into the space under her bed she is prowling around in, which leaves only her lower half sticking out—

Edelgard hurriedly turns away and focuses on — on the plants! The books! There are _so_ many interesting items in this room that she had been practically salivating over mere moments earlier! Surely one of them can provide enough of a distraction from the blooming realisation in her mind that she is currently alone with the woman she has been crushing on for the better part of two months — and unlike their dalliances in her own room, there is nobody who would think to look for her here; a fact that causes Edelgard to have to bite her lip forcefully to stem the flow of the imagery that refuses to gracefully leave her—

“Found it,” proclaims Sothis, dragging out a plain, unadorned wooden box that creaks ominously. “This is what I actually wanted to show y — why are you... wait, were you staring at my...?”

Edelgard rapidly shakes her head while staring at a particularly orange flower above Sothis’ head, not trusting her eyes to look directly at the subject of her desires or her voice to not betray the rapid thumping of her heart.

_Traitorous heart, why must you push all the blood to my face at the first sign of trouble..._

“Riiight,” drawls Sothis, the smirk audible in her voice even as she blushes prettily at Edelgard’s inadvertent admission. “How scandalous of you, El.”

Edelgard chokes out a noise somewhere between a growl and a whimper as she covers her face with a gloved hand, and motions at Sothis to get on with it.

“Well,” says Sothis, her smirk fading as she undoes the latch on the box to reveal pieces of history that outdo the others in the room by leagues. “Here’s why I offered my assistance against that Hero’s Relic they’ve stolen.”

“The white sword...” murmurs Edelgard almost reverently, her hand falling limply to her side. There are _legends_ passed down in her family about this sword and the shield that accompanies it, about the blade that stood against the most powerful Hero’s Relic to ever exist—

“The weapon that slew the King of Liberation,” says Edelgard aloud.

Sothis nods, lifting the Sword of Seiros out of the box and giving it an experimental twirl.

“Let’s hope it lives up to its reputation,” she murmurs ominously.

* * *

Annette tries her best to hate her father.

The sweet and familiar scent of dew tingles past her nose in the morning, stronger now since she is awake earlier than she usually is; she has just finished packing for the few days it will take to travel as deeply as the Blue Lions must into the Kingdom. Her pack is warmer than it needs to be — Professor Jeralt had announced that two of the Black Eagles would be joining them on this mission, and Annette has always heard that the Empire is far warmer than anywhere in the Kingdom. It just wouldn’t do for the Eagles to freeze after they’d so kindly offered their help!

Annette levies a cheerful, lilting hum at her pack and nods at it in appreciation, then steps outside her room to birdsong and the encroaching brightness of dawn. There is an hour yet before they are to leave, but she is burning with far too much nervous energy to check on Mercie — and be checked on in turn — so she heads for her usual morning trek through the gardens. Perhaps she will encounter some lovely—

—she stumbles on thin air at what she encounters. “Father,” she breathes, stunned for a long moment as he stares at her like a startled deer. But she regains her senses quickly — never again will she get a better chance, now that Mercedes has told her he does not plan to leave the Knights of Seiros... “Father!”

“Annette,” he replies, taking a hesitant step back. _He does not deny me recognition, now,_ she realises with a thrill. “Annette. I — I must go.”

“No,” answers Annette stonily. “Not until you promise me you will apologise to Mother, and then come back to us.”

“I cannot,” replies her father, voice strained and face shadowed. “I have — this is how it must be, for now.”

“For now?” growls Annette, incensed. “What are you saying?! We’ve waited _years_ — Father, please!”

“I am sorry,” says her father, voice almost pleading — and Gilbert walks away.

“I still walk in the mornings, you know,” calls Annette, her hands shaking as she balls them into tight fists. He halts, not looking back, and she continues, voice almost cracking, “Every _day_ , without fail. I remember the ones we used to take. I would point at every little thing and question, and you would reply, and I grew up with the feeling of knowing there was a giant at my back who would always save me from the cold winds. And then you _left_. You ripped it away, and now when I feel the wind I—”

Her throat closes up, and she tries to force her feelings out but the words do not appear, and her mouth works fruitlessly against the cold air, and her eyes swim in tears that protect her from seeing him walk away again.

“I am sorry,” Annette thinks she hears him whisper, but her heart does not let her make much of it beyond the overwhelming surge of fury and betrayal in her arteries that freezes her where she stands, shaking and _numb_ and unable to even—

Hating him should have been easiest in the early morning, when the bitter stench of betrayal stings the back of her throat.

But it is the late afternoon of another day, and Annette’s heart still has not mustered it.

The rocky lands of Galatea are in sight now, after an arduous trek from Garreg Mach through the Kingdom’s harsher inclines. It has not started snowing yet, but the landscape is no less bleak for it; barren fields and loose soil stretch over wheatless prairie as far as the eye can see, and the overcast sky threatens the land with rain poised to wash away the meagre energy this land’s hungry can muster.

“It has not gotten any better since the famine,” admits Ingrid quietly. “We had hope, for a while — last summer was more productive than usual, but... it wasn’t to last. We did not have enough to purchase better fertiliser, and so our crop barely survived the winter. We’re not starving quite yet, but...”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” says Edelgard quietly, and Annette marvels yet again at her presence here.

Nevermind that she had never even imagined that a _House Leader_ assisting another House with a mission was possible, let alone heard of such a thing — it is the way Edelgard meshes in with the Blue Lions that makes her so fascinating. Sothis has come along too, of course, wearing a dangerous-looking sword and elegant-seeming shield that Annette wagers must be worth more than anything she has ever owned; but Sothis has always felt... flightier, somehow, and it does not seem strange for a once-mercenary like her to easily slip in and out of the dynamic of the Blue Lions, whatever weapons she wields. Even her piercing gaze that had so unnerved Annette at their first meeting seems like a familiar friend, now — she seems to use it to dance around jests and strange jokes, at best, and keeps mostly to speaking with Professor Jeralt or Edelgard, otherwise.

But Edelgard seems much more grounded — every action she takes seems weighty, carried out with the utmost deliberation. Every word she speaks sounds measured, and every step she takes is considered so carefully; Annette would have long expired without her mountains of hard work to centre her, but such effort seems _exhausting_ even to her — and yet the pale-haired Imperial Princess keeps at it like a dog wearing a bone. A bone shaped like Dimitri’s discomfort with her, or Dedue’s determination to follow His Highness to all ends — shaped like Felix’s mistrust of her motivations, or Sylvain’s mistrust of her kindness, or Ingrid’s mistrust of her restraint — shaped even like Ashe’s unending gratitude for her, or Mercedes’ unspoken worry for her health.

Edelgard von Hresvelg does _not_ mesh well with the Blue Lions, even without the shadow of Hubert at her back. ( _He said he had matters to attend to,_ shrugs Edelgard when a curious Mercedes inquires after his whereabouts.) She is a sharp rock surrounded by sharp rocks that have eroded themselves to each other’s shapes but not to hers, and even Professor Jeralt’s methodical calm does not seem to give her much of a place to slot in. But she _tries_ to, whatever her motivation might be, and Annette’s heart almost bursts with gratitude for it.

Her father has also deigned to join them on this mission, as someone who knows the territory well. He is _sorry_ , it seems, and this is enough to allow him to walk twenty paces distant from her as if they are strangers who just happen to share blood and a mission.

(Professor Jeralt had asked her if she could swallow her anger for the duration of this week. He had said that if she could not, she should ask her father to either leave (which they could not afford), or to leave herself (which he did not want), or to confront her father when he has no room to escape from her feelings. _Burn away your anger,_ she remembers him saying. _Or throw it at him, then hope that your bond with him survives._ _But don’t think it’ll leech away on its own — that just means your anger will become your hatred._ Annette had nodded silently at his words, understanding perfectly.

She _is_ trying her best to hate her father, after all. Her anger can only help her along.)

The Professor’s concerned gaze follows Annette as afternoon turns to night, and she absently stokes the campfire with more force than is perhaps strictly necessary. Ingrid solemnly apologises to everyone gathered for not being able to host them in an inn even though they are in the midst of her family’s lands, and the Professor breaks off his gaze from Annette’s fist — clenched around the stick she is using to poke the logs — to reassure Ingrid that she has nothing to apologise for, and that a campground will keep them far more alert than an inn ever could.

“It does not feel right,” says Dimitri in a quiet voice, some time after everyone has finished setting up camp and is seated around the campfire for whatever brief respite from the cold they can find.

“Your Highness?” probes Dedue, when it is clear nobody else is willing to push Dimitri on his sentiment.

“We are going to hunt a pack of brigands who have ravaged the lands around them. Their leader makes their savagery possible with a weapon he stole only because he was thrown out of his House for having no Crest,” begins Dimitri, a dark edge to his voice. “A month ago, we hunted a faction of the Church whose war had ravaged the lands around them. They wrought havoc because they were, in their view, trying to uphold their image of the Goddess. And yet... both times, it is only the people who had nothing to do with them who bore the brunt of the brutality. Why... Professor. The brigands I cannot speak for — but their leader, or those from the Western Church... if they ever thought their cause just, would they not have stopped upon seeing what it was doing to the people?”

“No revolution has ever happened without bloodshed,” replies the Professor in a thoughtful rumble. “The trouble comes from the ones who lose sight of the end, and think the bloodshed is where it all begins and ends.”

“You’re giving my brother too much credit, Professor,” snorts Sylvain humourlessly, and Annette frowns at him in worry. “Revolutionary isn’t an epithet I’d ever attribute to him, even if I was feeling particularly kind that day.”

“There was a reason he struck out in the first place though, wasn’t there?” asks Edelgard quietly. “He might not want much beyond revenge for it, now that he has the power to do something, but...”

Sylvain sighs, staring into the fire and not meeting anyone’s eyes. Ingrid quietly pats his shoulder in sympathy, and he raises his head to smile at her briefly in gratitude before mumbling, “Yeah. This damned Crest tore us apart. He was always told he wasn’t good enough — but then he never thought I was good enough, either.”

Felix _humphs_ disdainfully. “He should have tried harder before giving up,” he says. “Not much of a brother, was he?”

“Felix!” hisses Ingrid, and Annette has half a mind to join her — but Felix just stares back at her defiantly, raising his chin as if to dare her to challenge him. “You shouldn’t—”

“He’s right, Ingrid,” grunts Sylvain, rising to his feet and nodding at Felix, expression unreadable. “I stopped thinking of him as that after... well. A long time ago. I’m just going to, uh... take the first watch. Over... there. Yeah. Good night.”

Annette watches him leave, her gut sinking as Mercedes murmurs a quiet _oh dear_ from next to her. Sothis, surprisingly, is the first to rise to her feet and start walking in his direction. Even Professor Jeralt seems surprised by this, and stops her with a quiet, “Where you going, kid?”

Sothis pauses to consider his query, face shadowed. “Someone,” she says slowly, “needs to remind him the cycle can still be broken. His brother might not have been able to do it, but...”

Annette watches her leave, too, the words breezing past the waters of her mind without making so much as a ripple. Even as everyone disperses to head in for the night and Dedue diligently puts out the fire, she stays where she is, staring at the fading embers without even blinking much. She looks up briefly to thank Mercedes, who drapes a warm cloak around her shoulders before patting her back gently and leaving — and frowns when she feels someone staring at her. Everyone has departed to sleep for the night, so why—

“You’re angry,” observes Felix quietly from beside her, and she jumps almost a foot into the air in surprise.

He merely stares curiously at her reaction, not offering a word in apology. “No,” he corrects slowly. “You’re _furious_.”

Annette gapes at him, and he raises a brow that dares her to disagree.

She deflates, suddenly, burying her head in her arms. Felix is by _far_ too observant to fool, so she decides she might as well not even try, and admits instead, “Yeah, I’m pretty mad.”

“Your father?” says Felix, not making it sound like much of a question. She nods anyway, looking up to watch his reaction.

His face is contorted oddly, as if he does not quite know what to feel — she can empathise, and lets him know as much. He snorts, looking at the dead fire instead of at her, and shrugs as he says, “I’m pretty angry at mine, too. For different reasons, I’d wager.”

“Do you hate him?” wonders Annette in a small voice. “Or do you even... want to?”

Felix turns his gaze back to her, surprised. “Hate’s a pretty strong word,” he says cautiously. “I don’t hate _him_... I don’t think I’d want to, either. But the way he always acts, these days...”

Annette makes a doubtful noise. “Isn’t that the same thing?” she wonders. “We are how we act, so... so how could hating how he acts be different from hating him?”

“We are how we used to act, too,” says Felix, shrugging. “And how we’re going to act in the future. I hate clinging to the past, but... it feels kinda important when I think about someone I’ve got so many memories with.”

“Right...” whispers Annette, feeling like she could understand him — if only she would try. _Why am I not trying...?_

“I should head to sleep,” says Felix, rising. Annette nods at him in farewell, but he hesitates, as if trying to think of the right words to depart with. “You...” he starts, looking highly discomfited by whatever he is trying to say. “You shouldn’t worry so much,” he finishes anticlimactically, and then nods as if content with his message.

Annette blinks at him in bewilderment, but he merely turns and leaves to his tent with a gruff, “Good night.”

She stares at his back as he leaves, wondering why — despite all his aggravated air — even he doesn’t want to hate. _Am I a bad person for even trying? Can I ever be a good person, even if I didn’t succeed?_

Annette realises her answer in the din of battle, inches from the end of her life at the top of a dark tower. She realises she has failed — that she will _always_ fail — at hating her father.

She finds that she does not mind it in the least.

“Go!” he shouts at her, towering in front of her with his bulwark of a shield that catches two more arrows meant for her throat. “I will hold them!”

“No,” answers Annette again, firmly, and readies hands stuffed full of Fire and Wind. He still owes her an apology, but—

The archers targeting them fall to her mercy easily, and she smiles at him with a heart that has not forgotten but beats free of the burden of enmity. “Together,” she says to the man she still adores more than anyone else she has ever known, who stares at her with something akin to tears in his eyes.

“Together,” repeats her father, swallowing past what she still hopes is an apology, and they march on towards the head of the tower.

Annette had foolishly been separated from the rest of her class, and only Edelgard had remained to support her with admittedly _ferocious_ swings of a bright silver axe and the encouragement from a calm, methodical demeanour. But Edelgard is nowhere to be seen, now — Annette hopes anxiously that the woman is uninjured, but she has no time to think on it before they arrive not a moment too soon at the centre of the tower to see—

—Dimitri roar and impale a bandit on his lance, towering victoriously over the slain man. He thrusts his lance savagely down, then charges forward into another brigand — only to suddenly be thrown back by an echo of forbidding magic that issues from the makeshift strongroom in the middle of the towering fortress they fight in.

Out of the creeping miasma walks a man who could have been Sylvain, in another life. He walks with hair a shock of deep red, and eyes visible even at the distance he stands; an alluring hazel that would have, in another life, arrested many unwilling hearts. Although it seems they might do so in this life, too, for one of the bandits runs instantly up to him in servitude — only to recoil at the darkness of the magic pulsing from the weapon in his arm.

_It is a grotesque thing,_ thinks Annette. She realises thinking that way might be considered some form of blasphemy, and regrets the thought almost immediately; try as she might, though, she cannot deny the truth her eyes are supplying to her. A purple-red haze issues from the cracks in the blade’s bone-like structure, and the hilt looks like it has been carved from a gigantic beast of some sort. A weapon made of bone, that not-Sylvain drops from a shaking hand—

“Sylvain!” he screeches, voice an unholy shriek. “Sylvain, help—”

His words are cut off instantly before Sylvain can even retort from where he stands, frozen in place as he is by the sight of a glowing red blade jutting through his wayward brother’s chest.

_Clink-clank_.

A footstep, and the sword pierces further through and upwards.

_Clank-clank_ , and the thin blade has now carved an impossibly deep gash into the man’s chest.

All sound pauses for a moment before the blade is retracted with a grinding _squelch_ , and Miklan falls dead to the ground in a shower of gore.

A shadowed figure steps into the light, almost absently trampling Miklan’s skull into the ground with a careless step.

The hand that holds the blade extends from underneath a deep black cloak, engraved with accents of a bloody red around the hem. Underneath the cloak, dark metallic armour shines with a demonic brightness, one pauldron of which is painted a brighter red than the armour itself and is shaped like the feathers of a bird. The glowing red sword’s radiance fades, somewhat, but when Annette’s eyes flick to it again the form of the blade underneath the glow makes her stomach roll with unease.

A thin, segmented blade, attached to a cracked, pale hilt with a large hole in its centre — the way the blade undulates slightly as the figure steps forward reminds Annette almost of the motion of a _spine_ , but surely not—

The figure raises its head to reveal a bone-white mask, with one of the eye holes burnished with the same bloody red paint that covers the figure’s feather-like pauldron.

“I am the Flame Emperor,” announces the figure in a voice that sounds like the rush of a mighty tide, booming low and inevitable, then lifts the blade of bone that glows its deep bloody hue again. “I will bathe the world in flame.”

There is a bare moment of stillness...

...before the blade rises into the air, and slices the tower in two.

* * *

Sothis coughs out debris from her throat, and hopes dearly she does not have to dig anyone out of the mountains of rubble littered around her.

With a mighty heave, she frees her trapped leg from underneath a fallen rock — and then coughs out some more dust that seems to have made its home in her mouth. The roof of the tower around her has collapsed utterly, she realises in fraught horror, so she rises quickly — and unsteadily — to her feet. There is no time to spend gathering her bearings (though, she notes in relief, the elegant-looking enchanted blade Rhea had gifted her looks unharmed and attached securely to her belt still). She has people to save, but _where is Dad and where is Edelgard and where is everyone else—_

A weak cough sounds from ahead of her. She stares at the massive rock it seems to originate from, her heart sinking, but to her eternal surprise the gargantuan stone shifts slowly upward and a bedraggled Prince of Faerghus emerges from underneath.

“Sothis,” he rasps when she makes her way over to him, looking lost and frightened. “Where is... how did...”

She does not hesitate to squeeze his broad shoulders in a brief, one-armed hug, before reassuring him with a, “Let’s find them, hm?”

They set off; a mercenary in dusty blue wielding an unstained blade and a warrior in dusty grey towering behind her, heads craned and ears pricked for cries of help. They despair, at first — Sothis begins to imagine that Dimitri’s prodigious strength is the only reason he survived the collapse and that barely anyone else would have managed. _Dad would have survived, I think, and I... I dearly hope El, but—_

A feeble groan of pain rips through the cloud of doubt like a burning blade through flesh, and Sothis almost gapes in surprise when she hears a hushed, “Sorry, Felix! But I need to lift you to move... Sylvain, you need to _pull—_ ”

Dimitri swallows his relief when he sees his childhood friends still live. Sothis knows the telltale signs; he swallows thickly, wipes his face, and adopts a stoic expression that leaves no room for interpretation.

She has seen her father do the same far too often, after all.

Ingrid is much less circumspect about her joy — she absently wipes a dust-gathering tear from her eye as she greets her future liege, and they make quick work of freeing a trapped Felix from under a column of stone.

“I found this when I came across Gilbert helping Annette and the others,” says Sylvain quietly, handing her the shield Rhea had given her, still miraculously undented. “Professor Jeralt was with them.”

Sothis swallows reflexively, almost sobbing at the sudden wave of relief at knowing he is still safe. The tension in her spine has not yet completely alleviated, though—

“And Edelgard?” she asks quietly, not getting a reply. “Did you...”

Ingrid opens her mouth to say something, and it is only because Sothis focuses all her energies on hearing the impending words that she catches the barest whisper of a _clink-scratch_ ring out quietly from just ahead of the pile of rubble they are hiding behind.

She swallows roughly again, but this time in preparation.

“Dimitri,” says Sothis in a pre-emptive whisper. “Take them and run.”

He gapes at her, and then furiously shakes his head — _how could I abandon a comrade,_ he says, and then—

“I will have that man’s head,” promises Dimitri in a whispered tone of dark hurt. “I swear it to you.”

“And he will have yours, and Felix's, and Sylvain’s, and Ingrid’s, and mine,” snaps Sothis back as quietly as she can. “I can fight him, but you _must_ run. Please. For their sake, if not your own.”

He stares angrily, his need for vengeance warring against whatever he has gleaned from her words. But then he tilts his head to the side, as if listening... and to her eternal surprise, nods begrudgingly at her. “I will—”

The telltale _clink-scratch-click_ of the vertebrae of the Sword rings out again, and Sothis jumps out — barely in time to stop Dimitri being turned into ribbons of flesh.

Her daughter’s sword sparks furiously against the onslaught of the stolen blade wielded by the white-masked figure of the one calling himself Flame Emperor, but it seems Rhea had not been exaggerating her blade’s capabilities — nary a dent is visible on its smooth surface even as Sothis blocks blow after blow from the sword of bone that strikes out as a wildly flailing whip at her. She almost smiles in satisfaction — almost, because she cannot spare an iota of focus but on continuing her offense against the figure caught only momentarily off-guard.

_Left thrust, reverse grip, upwards slash._

The Flame Emperor does not seem to be much phased by her flurry, and calmly defends himself against the blows — a perfectly spaced backstep, an almost surgical deflection, and an unhurried counterslash put him squarely in control of the battle. But Sothis has learned to fight against the most unhurried of fighters in Jeralt, and she has contingencies upon contingencies ready to be executed—

_Jab, slash right, kick._

The Flame Emperor stumbles at the sheer force of her blow, but his heavy armour allows him to turn the momentum of the stumble into an easy spin-dodge that makes Sothis’ finishing blow go wide. A rock on the ground catches the tail end of her blade, and explodes into pieces at the sheer force that hisses past it.

_Parry with the shield, dodge and reposition._

Sothis does not intend to let this _thief_ gain the upper hand — not even when he is fighting so respectably well, and does not seem to stumble at even the strangest of her gambits. He fights, oddly, as if every move Sothis is using has been rehearsed to perfection in the eye of his masked mind — _as if he is familiar with this dance_ — that is, until he strikes with a move Sothis does not expect. A glancing strike against the edge of her blade turns into a fight to keep it from being shorn in two by the unholy force behind the strike—

_Reverse grip, overpower—_

The Flame Emperor casually forces both their weapons towards the ground, wraps a hand around Sothis’ neck, and leaps off the ruined tower through a gaping hole in the wall behind her.

The sudden pressure against her windpipe renders her unable to even scream as they fall, and she kicks as hard as she can against the metal armour of her assailant. He does not so much as grunt in pain, but his hand around her neck leaves enough leeway for her to flail backwards out of his grasp and realise she is _hurtling towards the ground,_ so she reaches forward to slam a fist as hard as she can into the Flame Emperor’s armour. He still does not make a sound, but Sothis does not wait for one and instead reverses their positions so she can slam him headfirst into the ground—

A gauntleted palm against her torso unleashes a burst of magic that drives the breath from Sothis’ lungs entirely and sends her careening into the air just before they hit the ground.

She tries to land on her feet, but the momentum of the spell that the Flame Emperor had used does not let her, and she tumbles twice — barely avoiding cutting herself on the blade clutched fitfully in her hand — before coming to a halt. She rises to her feet instantly — the ground rolls unsteadily beneath her, and her mind insists that she is going to fall, but she has no time to listen to it. If she does not close the distance to the Sword that can cleave through stone and metal alike, she will die.

Fortunately for her continued survival, the Flame Emperor is much slower to his feet than she had been, and has only barely risen before she is upon him. He still expertly parries the blow, though, and returns an unhurried counter that makes her shield arm shake with the effort of blocking it. _How is he suddenly so strong—?!_

The answer does not come to her, except in a mocking fashion formed by the music of swords clanging and screeching against each other; the thin, bright metal of Seiros’ Sword proves more than a match for the incandescent fury of a blade crafted from _her own desecrated corpse—_

The Flame Emperor stumbles over a body on the ground. A beat later, Sothis carves a thin gash into his mask, poised to vivisect him entirely on her next blow — until the body on the ground shifts and groans painfully in a voice that sounds _dangerously_ like her father’s.

Sothis unfreezes and continues on her sword’s trajectory when she realises the body is far too small to be him, but she is already too late — the Flame Emperor has already capitalised on her hesitation and starts to jab the Sword of the Creator at her. He will sweep it to the side next, she _knows_ , but she is in no position to properly block it with either her sword or her shield; jumping back and away is her only option. She takes it—

—and gets a painful gust of Wind slammed into her ribs again. This time, she manages to avoid being sent flying, and grunts in effort as she charges back at him instead. But she is too far, and the Sword of the Creator has time to unfurl its glowing vertebrae and come flying at her like a deadly whip with a sharp _whistle_ — but just like a whip, deadly or otherwise, it has its weaknesses. Being wrapped around a sword, for instance—

The Sword’s whip-like blade snakes straight past her sword arm and shears straight through the shield-straps on her other arm, then wraps around the disarmed limb like the vice-grip of death.

Sothis does not realise she is screaming until she drops her sword and sinks to her knees in pain.

She shakes and cries at the torturous _agony,_ tearing and grasping and scratching uselessly with her free hand at the impossibly sharp segments of the blade lodged firmly into her arm — her hand bleeds and her arm bleeds and she bleeds and please make it stop stop stop stop stop _stop stop stop **stop** —_

And then the Flame Emperor pulls at the blade.

Her throat does not last more than three seconds.

The pain lasts far, _far_ longer.

The white-hot torment engulfs every fibre of her being in it until her world is nothing but a hue of dark red and black fire, leaving behind nothing — nothing — nothing except—

Nothing.

The torture ceases, and Sothis collapses face-first into the rubble-strewn soil.

A final stab of pain, and then...

Sweet, blissful emptiness.

...

_Why am I,_ weakly wonders some part of her that somehow yet lives, _still alive?_

The question does not appeal to most of her. But the part that listens seems also to be in control of her limbs, so Sothis slowly raises her head and props herself up on an elbow.

Sothis finds that she is just in time to witness, through hazy and tear-stained eyes, the visage of the angel who has come to save her.

Red.

Bright, bloody red.

Black.

Abyssal, unnerving black.

White.

Beautiful, soulful white.

Her ears ring and ring and ring, but she can still hear through the deafening gongs of her own screams the words of the one who has laid her agony to rest.

“I will _burn you_ ,” snarls Edelgard von Hresvelg, dusty and grimy and panting with _rage_ , before she grabs the Sword of Seiros from where it lies at Sothis’ head and throws herself at the Flame Emperor.

She moves like the wind, white hair flying like a herald of the dawn behind her, and the blade in her hand becomes a dizzying blur as it unleashes strike after furious strike at the masked figure. She whirls gracefully, strikes ceaselessly, and in no time is the white-masked figure forced to do nothing but strain and defend against her unending onslaught that echoes like a bell being rung in time with the pounding of Sothis’ every nerve, still singing in pain.

But just like Sothis’ hazy vision, Edelgard’s furor eventually dips below the horizon. She is dusty and grimy and still snarling in anger, but her strikes are growing more sluggish and there are deep cuts in her uniform that are surely slowing her down. The Flame Emperor, conversely, does not seem to feel the iron hammer of time or tide, and does not slow in his movements in the least; like a clockwork orange, he sears the rust off the ancient mallet of the world and forces it to beat to a rhythm of his choosing.

A rhythm that Edelgard is too tired to adapt to. She moves just a hair too slow on a parry, and before Sothis can work up the energy to shout a warning—

—a bolt of eldritch energy flying past her and slamming into the Flame Emperor does it for her.

_Gotta let it fly, kid_ , remembers Sothis when she sees the purple flurry of sparks it produces on impact. The image of an eight-year-old Byleth bouncing like a puppy at being shown a new spell floats in her mind’s ever-darkening eye; she even remembers sulking in the corner, still unable to produce a spark of flame.

The Blade-Breaker does not let the Flame Emperor breathe another moment before he is upon him, swinging a mighty axe and pressing the darkly-armoured figure in with a controlled swing that shakes the earth when it misses. The Flame Emperor thinks to capitalise in Jeralt’s moment of stillness — but Edelgard has not given up, and a swing of the Sword of Seiros cuts a bloody gash into the Flame Emperor’s armour.

Jeralt’s next strike heads for the man’s throat, and Edelgard leaves the flailing figure no room to maneuver with a follow-up thrust of her borrowed blade. They have found their rhythm—

—so the Flame Emperor vanishes in a burst of purple light, choosing to abandon the dance.

There is a long moment of absolute stillness, before Sothis’ elbow gives way and she collapses again into the ground.

She can still see — through eyes far duller than usual — Edelgard drop her borrowed sword and turn back towards her. Her father almost _leaps_ to her side, too, with a cry of her name.

“Hang in there, kid,” chokes out Jeralt, sounding more panicked than she has ever heard him as he turns her over onto her back. “Don’t close your eyes!”

“Healer!” screams Edelgard before she can reply. Sothis blinks; surely she cannot have lost that much blood...

“I feel fine,” she assures them as Jeralt ties his cloak around her mangled arm, although it comes out as a garbled and throaty rasp even to her still-ringing ears. Edelgard hovers over her face with a shake of her head, wiping at... her face? with a rag made of her hastily-torn off cape. “El, why — oh.”

The cape is dripping red. _It looks as if it’s melting, really..._

“Wow,” marvels Sothis. She tries to giggle, but accomplishes nothing more than a weak twitch and the awakening of a sudden drowsiness that steals over her. She fights it as best as she can — _Dad told me to not close my eyes—_

“Sorry, Dad...” regretfully announces Sothis, losing the last of her strength. “Don’t be mad, but... gonna... nap...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ehehe
> 
> double the words, double the "oh god how the fuck am I meant to switch so abruptly between the sweetest fluff into the moodiest angst into _plot twist_ "


	22. The Shadow of Death

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Strange things abound in the land between — and on either side of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cat

She awakens to fire in her eyes, and ash on her tongue.

One eyelid at a time, the brightness of the world assails her with its unforgiving cheer and insistent bloom. Green stretches in all directions around her; strangely coloured fruits dangle from towering trees, gentle winds whistle through boughs of birch like the tinkling of many bells, and furtively darting squirrels cavort with colourfully plumed birds to give the entire scene an indescribable scent of _life_ that fills her lungs — a feeling in her heart she cannot name, but that she knows immediately she is fond of.

And yet as she sits up, she can only wonder why the sounds of the deep, lush forest around her strike her with a sense of deep, melancholic regret instead.

* * *

Pace.

One half-turn.

Pace.

One half-turn.

Pace.

Jeralt marks the angle of the coat rack’s shadow cast by the light streaming through the window, then sighs quietly to himself.

_Two hours..._

“Kid,” he says gently, voice echoing softly around the corridor outside the infirmary. “You should rest before you tire yourself out.”

Edelgard pauses in her insistent stride, gives him a look full of emotion he does not quite have the energy to untangle, and resumes her motion.

He stares at her for a brief, numb moment — then chuckles at himself.

_She sure picked a brave one..._

“If you’ve passed out by the time they’re done and she wakes up,” tries Jeralt again, “she’ll be pretty unhappy.”

Edelgard pauses again. This time, he manages to pick out a splash of defiance in the bucket-load of feeling her gaze throws at him. But the defiance is laced with fatigue, and she nods only once before her shoulders slump and she almost collapses into the chair next to his.

He hums in approval, and resumes his vigil of the shadow that tells him how long his daughter has been asleep for.

_Three days since the tower..._

Jeralt swallows roughly. He hasn’t ever really minded praying to the Goddess if the occasion warrants it — sometimes, he’d done it even after Sothis had been told who she was. It had been a mildly amusing thing, a spark of humour at imagining what his daughter would say if she’d heard his wayward prayer. But when the Goddess herself is fast asleep...

_If you’re watching, Sitri,_ he pleads to the only one he thinks might be left to hear him, with desperation he hasn’t felt since a particularly fiery night two decades ago, _help her out, would you?_

* * *

“Is it helping?” asks Dorothea dubiously, eyeing the faintly shimmering spiderweb of scars on Byleth’s right arm in concern.

Flayn grunts in exertion, rivulets of sweat stream down Byleth’s face, and the halo of gold shining from their hands glows brighter in acknowledgement of their efforts.

“Her wound seems to be responding better to it than anything else we’ve tried,” shrugs Manuela when it seems nobody else will reply. “Although,” she adds with a frown as she continues stitching together the mangled mess that is Sothis’ arm, “it hasn’t seemed to slow down its metamorphosis into... well, _that_.”

_That_ , of course, is the horrifyingly striking shade of purple-orange that has all but taken over Sothis’ injured arm — the same arm that Manuela is attempting to hold together with her best mixture of hope, stitches, and witchcraft; the same arm, too, that Byleth and Flayn are both pouring every last vestige of their healing energy into. But the colouring of the wounded limb is not particularly what frightens Dorothea — a childhood spent on the damp and derelict streets of the poorest parts of Enbarr has all but inured her to the sights of colourful wounds and bruises.

No, it is the strange sight of the skin around the wound seeming to... harden, almost, that gives her pause. _It’s ossifying_ , she remembers Flayn mumbling. Lady Rhea had given Flayn a glance laden with meaning at the words; Dorothea is not sure what meaning was meant to be divined there, but Flayn had clearly not thought much of it. She’d replied with only an uncharacteristic shrug before setting herself to work with a volume of healing magic that still seems almost terrifying issuing from her rather small form.

“It may not be safe to use such a large amount of magic on her for so long, but...” trails off Lady Rhea in a whisper as if plucking the thought straight from her mind, and Dorothea swallows mutely as she considers the Archbishop’s lowered gaze. It terrifies her, normally; she has only ever known something in those orbs to glint as sharp as a knife’s edge, and she can usually only bear the chilling sensation of her skin being peeled away from body for so long before she has to excuse herself from the woman’s presence.

But the knife’s edge seems greatly dulled, today. Lady Rhea has kept her eyes fixed solely on the occupant of the bed she has been hovering over since Professor Jeralt had shown up at the gates, cradling his unconscious child with a stark terror in his eyes that had struck Dorothea dumb to witness. That same terror is reflected in the thousand-league stare that haunts the Archbishop’s demeanour, realises Dorothea; she gazes at Sothis’ unconscious form with a look that speaks of a heart on the verge of shattering into a fine dust of despair — held together, barely, by the still-beating heart of the woman on the bed whose hair and whose eyes look so much like the Archbishop’s own.

There are _secrets_ there, Dorothea knows. Being a star at Mittelfrank had opened so many doors for her with nothing but a wink and a smile in the right direction, and yet the Officer’s Academy had seemed to her an unreachable goal even at her peak — straining with shoulders set against the gargantuan stone-wrought entryway of Garreg Mach had afforded her not the slightest bit of purchase against them. If it hadn’t been for the path a certain diva had carved and left open for Dorothea by somehow stepping over all those wretched nobles in Enbarr to become Professor Manuela of the Officer’s Academy—

—well. Dorothea is not liable to think too highly of herself at the best of times, but even she can see that a mere mercenary, no matter how celebrated, could not have waltzed into the Officer’s Academy with greater ease than either Dorothea _or_ her much sharper once-mentor and now-Professor, based purely on her merits as a mercenary alone.

But secrets or otherwise, Dorothea has still grown rather fond of her energetic classmate. So she gently grabs the bucket sitting next to the bed and moves closer to Sothis’ pale, sweat-drenched form, soaking a towel in the cool water inside. She can feel Lady Rhea’s hawkish gaze on her head, but she keeps her gaze down and only gently grabs the towel as she settles herself on the bed next to Sothis. A gentle swipe across her forehead is first — it wipes away the sweat that had been shimmering on her face and replaces it with much cooler moisture, and a crease in Sothis’ brow unfolds to smoothness as Dorothea drags the wet towel across it.

Thrice Dorothea repeats her motion, doing her part to help cool down Sothis’ skin that feels like it might be scorching underneath the pressure of the healing magic she is being subjected to, and thrice Dorothea feels Lady Rhea make almost inaudible noises of concern — as if she has a question she wishes to ask, but cannot decide on the best way to do it.

She must eventually figure it out, though, because Dorothea is halfway through brushing off Sothis’ hair stuck in sweat-soaked strands to the sides of her neck when she hears a whisper, almost inaudible, of, “She — she looks too vulnerable.”

Dorothea pauses in her motion, swallows past the lump in her throat again, and admits back in a murmur, “I was trying not to think of that.”

She looks up into the Archbishop’s eyes, and flinches as she almost immediately regrets her decision. She hadn’t thought she would ever hate the idea of catching Lady Rhea’s gaze and not having the usual all-knowing twinkle sear through her soul — and yet here she is, wrestling with the feeling of _wrongwrongwrong_ that strikes her squarely and painfully in the gut as soon as their eyes meet.

“You have my thanks,” says Lady Rhea in a muted breath. Another rushed inhale, then, in a whisper filled with shame, “I — I was too distraught to care for her as I should have. But I am glad you are—”

“Nonsense!” interrupts Dorothea, then blushes when she realises she has cut off the _Archbishop’s_ sentence. “Um, I apologise for my rudeness. But really, she’s a sweetheart absolutely worth caring for, and besides — this _is_ my job, after all.”

Lady Rhea blinks at her, looking lost, so Dorothea feels compelled to explain, “Professor Manuela was of the opinion that moonlighting as her assistant in the infirmary would give me some much needed, um... perspective?”

“Faith, dear,” corrects Manuela, not looking up from her meticulous work on Sothis’ arm. “Though I do wonder if it has helped...”

“Somewhat,” replies Dorothea, smiling tightly. She does not quite feel up to explaining her apathy about the Goddess to the Archbishop of her Church — particularly not when the woman looks like a glancing breeze might knock her down as she is now, all shadow-eyed and distressed.

So she refrains, and says instead, “I’m glad she’s fit in so well with everyone, though. And,” Dorothea realises she might be diving headlong into territory she might ordinarily consider _rambling_ , but Lady Rhea’s face displays something other than crushing despair for the first time since Dorothea has walked into this room, so she has no choice but to continue, “I think I realised how important she was to us when... heh, it sounds funny to say, but on our way back from Remire, after — after everything, Edie pulled me aside and asked me if it was terrible of her to feel happy, even after such a tragedy. And I wanted to ask her why in Fódlan she would ask such a strange question, but I looked around that camp — we were all gathered around Sothis, almost as if pulled to one of her weird stories about mercenary contracts — and I couldn’t spot a single face without a smile on it. Not even my own.”

Dorothea is sure the fond smile from back then has reappeared on her face by now, engrossed as she is in her memory. “It’s hard not to fall for someone like that,” she admits with a smile. “Not that I ever thought I stood a chance with Edie so interested, though. I swear, I’ve never seen that girl so... bubbly.”

“Edie?” queries Lady Rhea, tilting her head in a questioning motion that feels so familiar to Dorothea that she has to duck her head to hide a smirk, pretending she is doing an extremely thorough job of soaking the towel in the bucket of water.

_She really is cut from the same cloth as Sothis... as if the green eyes and hair weren’t clues enough._

“Edelgard,” clarifies Dorothea, once she has regained control of her facial muscles. “I like to nickname my friends. I tried with Sothis, too, but — hm.”

Something in her recollection of the memory strikes Dorothea suddenly; the glower in Sothis’ eyes as she had groused at the awful nickname Dorothea had attempted to bestow upon her, perhaps? She remembers being terrified of the way the green-eyed woman would stare through her skin and into the farthest reaches of her being — but she’d come to realise it was more than just her Sothis had that effect on. The way she always seemed taller than she actually was in any conversation, the way she jumped into the most outrageous of strategies with no warnings, even the way she filled the Black Eagles classroom with her presence...

“She’s usually so full of life,” Dorothea breathes, her mind unable to reconcile the image from her memory with the woman lying so still and broken on the infirmary bed. She swallows again, past a drier throat — perhaps some water would do her good, too — before continuing in a tinier voice, “But now she just looks... small.”

“She’s always been small,” mumbles Byleth absently.

Dorothea blinks and turns to her, not having expected anyone else to pay attention to her rambling — and gasps in dismay when she sees how _awful_ Byleth looks compared to barely a few minutes ago, even as she continues toiling with her magic.

Her blue hair has been a matted mess since they had begun the arduous process of healing Sothis, but she looks much paler than she had before, and her eyes have lost their usual enigmatic sparkle — replaced by something that does her already strained appearance no favours.

“Byleth,” begins Dorothea slowly. “Are you... are you alright?”

Manuela and Lady Rhea both cut their gazes to Byleth too, at that. Flayn only spares her a bare flick of her eyes before she returns to her concentration, but even her brief glance must concern her, because she frowns and asks, “Is it your arm?”

Byleth does not reply, but she does not need to — the slight shimmer of her scars has turned into a much shinier spectacle by now, and the wavy gold hue of magic that streams from her hands into Sothis’ arm seems to almost colour the lightning-like pattern a dangerously bright shade of amber.

Lady Rhea walks to her and places a gentle hand on the scar — and jerks it back impressively quickly, eyes wide. “You must rest,” she admonishes, frowning. “Your arm is — surely it must hurt with how hot it burns?”

“I can rest when she’s healed,” grunts Byleth in return, avoiding the question. “We’re almost done, anyway.”

“I can take care of it on my own,” insists Flayn, flicking her eyes to Byleth again briefly. “We are almost done, as you say. And even if I cannot handle the needed quantity of magic alone... well, I have everyone else in this room to help.”

“Agreed,” says Manuela with a frown of her own. “We shouldn’t ever have asked you to help, but — well, there were too many wounded that needed attending to, and few more talented at healing that hadn’t already been exhausted from the excursion to Faerghus. Linhardt, perhaps, but his healing talent suffers in the presence of blood, and the Golden Deer are away on a mission of their own.”

“I was fine to help,” insists Byleth, though her shoulders slump slightly. “I _wanted_ to,” she adds, a strange emotion in her voice Dorothea has never quite heard from her before.

“And you did,” agrees Dorothea gently, hoping to coax her into taking a break. “None of us would have been able to do half of what you’ve done today, except Flayn — but we can take care of the little that remains.”

But Byleth shakes her head still, even as the glow of her arm grows to a level that increasingly worries Dorothea. Manuela’s eyes widen—

— _snick_.

The glow fades, Flayn looks up, and Byleth staggers to one knee.

“We’ve sealed the wound,” breathes Manuela after a long moment of anticipatory silence as she finishes inspecting the now-healed arm. Lady Rhea clasps her hands tightly together in relief, and Byleth slowly walks over to the other side of the bed. “I can’t speak for the bone-like... growths,” continues Manuela with a worried grimace, “or how the weapon she was attacked with might have caused them — but they are on the inside of her skin regardless, and shouldn’t be much cause for—”

The _sizzle_ as Byleth sticks her arm into Dorothea’s bucket of water interrupts her quite effectively.

“Excuse me,” says Byleth belatedly, when everyone has stared at her in collective horror for an entire minute as steam rises from the bucket. “I just realised I have a — er, _something to do_.”

Dorothea stares in bewildered amazement as Byleth hurriedly takes off, and wonders if the hollow note in her voice just then had just been a product of her imagination — or a troubling symptom of a deeper problem.

* * *

Green eyes meet purple.

...

“Meow,” intones the cat dubiously.

“Meow!” she insists back. “Meow meow, me-ow!”

The cat flicks its tail up, gives her one final look of disdain, and saunters off into the underbrush.

She stares at its retreating form — and realises she must give chase if she is to find anything in this sprawling forest she has found herself in.

“Wait!” she calls desperately, grunting in pain as her bare feet twinge at the twigs and fallen branches scattered across the forest floor. “Kitty, wait! I didn’t mean it!”

She doesn’t know _what_ she hadn’t meant, of course, but the cat’s pearly white fur is becoming less and less visible and so she has no option but to fervently give chase. Down the twisting and windy path she goes, snaking through trees and hopping over branches in pursuit of her feline guide. It seems strange to think of it as such, she knows, but its striking lavender eyes have an intelligence hidden behind them that _should_ strike her as eerie — but instead only feels endearingly familiar.

But she has no time to ponder it, or her strange lack of a memory of anything; the cat has lead her to the edge of a deep, shadowed, and misty ravine that looms at the edge of the thick forest — the sudden appearance of which startles her almost into falling flat onto her own face.

She slowly regains her bearings and quiets the thudding of her heart as she observes the cat suspiciously.

It slows to an almost casual stroll along the ravine’s edge without a care in the world, now, oblivious entirely to her fright. The fog that obscures everything beyond the edge of the ravine creeps slowly over its edge, too, and licks at her feet — she trembles at the mere thought of it swallowing the cat up and leaving her forlorn and alone again in this desolate jungle, and so she chooses to keep following the blip of pearly white despite her misapprehensions about its intentions.

It seems the cat hadn’t tried to murder her by leading her off the edge of the cliff after all, because its pace has now slowed to an arrogantly glacial crawl — a crawl that doesn’t _seem_ to be in consideration for her trepidation at being so close to the edge of almost certain death, but she swears she has caught it turning back once or twice to check on her. She smiles slightly at the thought, huffing out a breath as she carefully skirts past a tree to continue on her chase — and stops in mute surprise when the snowy feline stops some distance away from a little girl sitting on the edge of the cliff, holding a fishing rod whose line dangles down into the endless fog of the ravine.

She makes sure to restrain her urge to run — it would not do to fall to her death now, when she has finally found another _human_ to speak to in this strangely terrifying place. Terrifying? She hadn’t thought so when she had woken up... what makes it terrifying, now? And why does the word _human_ not resonate well with—

—oh.

The girl is an unbelievable sight — her ears are long and pointed, and her hair is a bushy shock of verdant green that puts the forest to shame with how vibrantly it shimmers. Her green eyes, now that she is close enough to see them, focus unerringly on the rod that she holds precariously in her small hands. She does not know what the girl might be fishing for, deep in the fog that seems to reveal nothing to her eyes. But before she can ask, the girl turns to her — and her eyes widen with joy as she lets out a pleased squeal of surprise.

“Mother!” exclaims the girl. “You’re here!”

Her throat closes up in surprise, and she can only weakly wrap an arm around the girl who drops her rod and barrels straight into her midsection.

_Mother?_ she wonders. _Me?_

“I’m so glad you came,” continues the girl — her _daughter_? — in an excited wail. She agonises for a long moment over what to call the frantic child — if the girl really is her daughter, then admitting to her strange amnesia would surely break her fragile heart to pieces — and then what kind of a mother would she be fit to call herself?

“Mother?” asks the girl hesitantly at her continued silence. She panics — _I can’t let her know that I forgot my own daughter’s—_

“Little dragon,” she blurts, then blinks at herself in astonishment. Hesitantly, when her daughter keeps looking up at her with impressionably wide eyes, she continues, “I — I am glad you are here.”

Her child’s face morphs into the most adorable beam, and she buries her face into her stomach again. “I love you, Mother!” she wails, her cry muffled.

She gulps at the relief that washes over her, patting the little dragon’s head — then suppresses a smile when the strangely elongated ears twitch at her ministration. But her mirth does not last long, and she swallows down a question that threatens to burst uncaringly from her lips.

_Little dragon,_ she wants so desperately to ask, _who are you? How did I know to call you that?_

_And if you can answer that, little dragon... who am I?_

* * *

The silken moonlight slithers through the leaves, daring to go where nothing but the shadow of death will touch. Even the creatures of the dark are silent tonight; no crickets chirp, no cicadas croon, no centipedes crawl. There is only the darkness underneath the boughs, casting long, hazy shadows — and Hubert, who strides purposefully though them, wrapping the night around him in a veneer of secrecy.

This far from the Monastery’s walls, he cannot imagine there is much chance of him being followed — but he has not lived so long by trusting chance, so he takes the precaution regardless. His destination is hidden here out of necessity, too, amidst these depths uncharted and trees overgrown; none must be allowed to know of the secret he is currently taking great pains to check on the security of.

Down the carefully hidden path treads Hubert, taking care to conceal his tracks behind him just as Byleth had taught him. He refuses to feel vexed at how smoothly the technique works; he is not an arrogant man, after all, and knows his expertise in many areas is bested by many. But he is proud, and rightfully so, of his ability to learn from the greatest masters — and in doing so he surpasses them, so that if they ever decide to become obstacles on the path he walks...

He huffs out the slightest of breaths, smirking to himself. _Dragged into the shadow of Lady Edelgard... or else, into the shadow of her enemies’ graves._

The path he walks tonight, though, holds not a single obstacle for him — it would ordinarily be his Lady treading it, but she has not seen fit to do so in several weeks. Her revolution, she had explained, would require less bloody methods now. He had been concerned, of course. Playing at being a student here, in this farce of an Academy — he worries it has made her too... soft. He could not quite bring himself to say so, though; he knows better than anyone else alive just how much of a toll Lady Edelgard’s childhood had exacted upon her being. After all, his duty as her protector is to protect her from the scars of her past, too, and seeing her so obviously happy with the fork she has taken on her path...

_Hm,_ he considers, arriving at his destination and surveying a tree that is, by all appearances, the exact same as any other in the darkness — not very tall, but certainly wider than he is. _A pathetic excuse for a servant I would be, if all my conniving did not allow for her to follow her heart to its content..._

_But even my conniving has failed us, now._

The tree has a hollowed-out base, and it is into this that he reaches to push a magical trigger, so painstakingly crafted. The trigger produces no visible change on the surface of the tree, but he steps around it with careful practice and pops open its back, which reveals itself to be a thin wooden panel that serves as the cover to a stash that holds the target of his investigation:

A deep cloak the colour of the night, its hem glittering with accents of crimson. A dark metallic suit of armour underneath that seems to be darker than even the shadow it lies in — the only part of it visible a feather-shaped pauldron painted in blood. A mask lying atop the cloak, bone-white save for a stroke of bloody fire around one eye—

—untouched for several weeks, with a fine layer of dust settled atop it.

Hubert’s blood runs colder than it had even when his Lady had reported the details of her battle to him, and reaches out hesitantly to trace out a line through the dust on the mask. None save him and Lady Edelgard know of the location of this armour, but it is still within walking distance of the Monastery, so he had expected to be greeted with nothing in this hollowed out tree. A theft like that would have made sense — it would have told him that he might not have been as careful as he had thought, or perhaps that they had been otherwise discovered. But this...

_It must be them,_ he decides. It cannot be anyone else, after all — Those Who Slither had not created the Flame Emperor’s armour for Lady Edelgard, but she has parleyed with them often enough for them to discern much regarding its construction. Not many others have seen the Flame Emperor in person and lived long, after all, so any inaccuracies in the impostor’s garb — especially in the heat of battle — would be likely to go unnoticed.

_A wonderful scheme,_ he acknowledges with a grimace. _Though with Thales and Solon both dead... I wonder who remains responsible?_

Hubert replaces the wooden panel, rearms the magical trigger, and realises the moon no longer shines in the sky.

He blinks and rubs his eyes, at first, thinking he has merely been awake too long. His eyes must be playing tricks on him, growing tired — but no, moving around and peeking through the treetops reveals nothing of light to him. The sky is nearly a pitch-perfect black, and even the shine of the scant few stars that line it seems muted. His jaw hangs loose for the longest time, wondering what in the blazes could have—

—a cricket chirps once, and loudly.

Hubert listens to its echo die out, and begins to consider that he may have been discovered.

He walks faster, now, and takes a different route to leave than he had taken to arrive at the hidden stash. Fifteen paces into his uncharted path a cricket chirps again, this time much closer — just as he is about to drag a foot above a fallen branch.

He curses internally as he hesitates slightly in his step, and loudly cracks the wood underneath his boot.

The silence following the crack echoes in the utterly dead forest, and then a dozen crickets chirp at once — and do not stop their chatter.

He curses again, this time in an audible whisper, and begins running as fast as he dares.

The chirps of the crickets follow him, and soon there is a cicada’s call added to the mix. It sounds almost deafening, blaring constantly and making it hard for him to deduce where it must originate — as it is, the monotonous buzzing seems to issue from everywhere around him all at once. Alone it would be maddening, but combined with the constant and arrhythmic bleating of the infernal crickets, it is almost too much to bear.

Hubert abandons all thought of discretion, and sprints in earnest in the direction he knows leads to the Monastery’s hidden exit.

Every step takes him past paths he has not tread before, but ones that he still dearly hopes will lead him to safety. He is alone here, after all, and has no good explanation to give to the Knights for being out at such an hour if he is discovered sneaking back in. His confidence in his ability to best whatever enemy is pursuing him has still not waned, but he cannot best an enemy he never sees. _And—_

His next thought is swallowed up by a sudden sensation of stark terror he has not felt in several long years — a feeling brought about when he realises the tree he finds himself in front of is the same tree that holds the magical trigger and the false-backed wooden panel.

_I don’t understand,_ thinks Hubert desperately—

—and the sounds of the forest die around him.

A trickle of sweat rolls down his neck, obscured by his long hair. He feels an irresistible urge to wipe it off, but something in the fear he feels has paralysed him utterly; to move now would be anathema to what his mind tells him. He tries to shake himself out of it—

—and finds himself freezing right back up when the sensation of thin, cold steel against the back of his neck catches the bead of sweat he had wished so insistently to wipe away.

“Hubert,” rasps the voice of his pursuer. “Turn around, Hubert.”

His body obeys the voice long before his mind can even begin to make sense of it, and he finds himself facing a visage he had never expected to be the cause of his dread. Matted, long blue hair that appears almost black in the darkness, a dark grey armour that catches absolutely no light — and eyes that would normally shimmer a bright, friendly teal, now holding nothing but a slow, rolling anger that paints them the colour of the moonless night.

“Hubert,” says the wild-eyed caricature with Byleth’s face. “The Flame Emperor’s armour is inside the tree behind you.”

“It — it is,” grits out Hubert, clenching his teeth in an attempt to stop his jaw from shaking too much.

Byleth nods thoughtfully, and raises her sword to lie level with his chin. “You have a good explanation for why it wasn’t you that attacked my sister and tried to kill her three days ago, yes?” she asks, the usual mildness of her voice replaced by something feral.

“I do,” breathes Hubert, trying futilely to calm his frantically rushing heart. He does not know why he is so affected — but something in this moment, in her aura—

“Well, she’s dead,” says Byleth, the light in her eyes fading to nothing, and Hubert’s stomach feels like it sinks through the ground. “So if I don’t hear that explanation in the next fifteen minutes, Hubert,” promises the ashen-faced demon wearing his classmate’s skin, “you will never be seen alive again.”

* * *

“The cat,” proclaims her daughter with a pout, “does not like me.”

She frowns at her daughter, and then at the sleepy cat she is carrying in her arms. At some point, it had decided to tire of being chased after, and had pawed at her foot until she had lifted it into her arms — upon which it had happily snuggled into her and started to purr in absolute contentment.

“Why not?” she asks carefully.

“It — it just does not!” insists her little dragon, crossing her arms in annoyance. She blinks and chuckles at her daughter, but reveals nothing of her true thoughts on the matter — mostly because she knows the cat may not be entirely to blame.

She knows this because she has discovered that her child is something of a... _miscreant._ The girl takes particular joy in chasing after squirrels, tiny hands scrambling after them and ears twitching in excitement — but that is not to say the squirrels are alone in being her victims. The birds, too, she chases with sticks, and blades of grass she picks and scatters with a vengeance; a cat is certainly within the realm of beings that could have been previously subjected to her tender mercies.

As if to confirm her thoughts, the cat in her arms raises its head and opens its eyes slowly, blinks at her, then returns to its peaceful slumber.

She shivers, and elects to say nothing further of it to her daughter.

“So,” she says breezily instead, as they casually stroll through the lush expanse of the endless forest. “Where are we going?”

Her daughter stops and frowns at her. “I was going after you,” she says.

She blinks. “I... was going after you,” she admits, then laughs nervously. “Heh. It seems we might have been wandering around aimlessly this entire time, then.”

Her daughter does not reply, staring around them instead, and she swallows back the questions that keep burning at her throat. _How do I get out?_ she wants to ask, but there are multitudes more that battle within her to be released into the open air. _How did I even get here? Why does my throat sting of ash and soot? Why are your ears pointed? Why do the trees seem so still?_

“What were you fishing for?” is what wins, to her eternal bemusement — and to her daughter’s, too, it seems, because she receives only a baffled blink in response.

“Dreams!” exclaims her child, when it is clear she really does not know the answer. “Like you showed me!”

“Dreams?” she wonders in reply. “How — how does one catch... dreams?”

“From minds, Mother!” giggles her daughter, as if she has asked a silly rhetorical question. “You’re being... you’re being too funny!”

She smiles automatically at her peculiar child’s precious laughter, even though the wheels of her mind churn darkly as she continues to consider her situation. A forest that fills her with desolation, at the edge of which is a ravine rolling with shadowy fog, in which one can apparently catch _dreams_...

“Little dragon,” she says hoarsely, and the most dangerous of her questions slips out before she can stop it. “What is this place?”

She watches in morbid fascination as her daughter’s eyes change. They remain the same as they were _physically_ , of course — a vibrant green that outshines everything in the forest around them — but there grows a weight behind them that threatens to shatter her with its magnitude. A yawning abyss of anguish, wisdom, and fury — each of which slam into her with a force that leaves her breathless and shaking—

—she shuts her own eyes, unable to watch the innocence of her precocious daughter turn to... to _that_.

When she opens them, the little dragon looks as she always has — but sad, as if hurt by her mother’s tacit rejection of her suffering.

The cat in her arms shifts slightly.

“You said you did not want to know,” replies her daughter eventually, now refusing to meet her eyes and instead turning in the direction that leads to the forest’s frightening edge. “I... I was trying to catch the dreams so you could remember.”

“Remember?” she replies curiously. “Remember... what?”

Her daughter says a word, and the world dissolves into light.

* * *

“...”

She shifts slightly, trying to close her eyes against the brightness snaking through her eyelids.

“...”

But it is insistent, and there is a buzzing in her ears that does not seem likely to relent, either.

“...”

A strange aroma makes its presence known, too, and she feels herself frowning as she tries to place it.

“...”

And then there is the pressure on her left arm, which feels decidedly unpleasant and altogether unwelcome—

“—Sothis!” four very different voices exclaim, and she groggily opens her eyes to the strangely endearing sight of Byleth, Jeralt, Edelgard, and Rhea all looming over her with equal degrees of concern etched onto their faces.

“Strange dream,” says Sothis by way of explanation, and gets four equally bewildered stares in response.

“I’m awake now, though,” she adds belatedly when Rhea almost collapses into her in relief, apparently having decided she is healthy enough to hug the life out of. Jeralt squeezes her shoulder in a gesture that gives a heart-wrenching weight to the emotion pooling visibly in his eyes, Byleth messes up her hair with a hand that shakes oh-so-slightly, and Edelgard grips her uninjured hand with a force that declares her intent to not let go while the sun still burns in the sky.

Sothis squeezes her eyes shut in a fruitless attempt to choke down the tide of adoration that threatens suddenly to overcome her, and feebly promises, “I’ll try to not do that again.”

* * *

(Once, there was fire in her eyes, and ash on her tongue.

Once, this place was a lullaby to the souls of the visiting — this great, verdant forest that was like no other. Winds rushed through the trees and would be muted to a gentle caress that soothed away all aches, the sounds of sweetly unfurling life would be playful and plentiful in their accompaniment, the heady _thrum_ of a land well-lived-in would be a balm to eyes that had seen much, and even the sweet grassy forest floor would smell like the most inviting place to rest. A shelter for the spirit.

And then _they_ descended upon it.

She watched the scant green leaves remaining wither into tongues of flame, each _hiss-crackle_ of fire sending a tingle of pain down her spine. She watched the unrestrained wind whip the blood of her enemy into a storm, their screams of horror fading to the blaze she had so carelessly unleashed upon this sweet haven. But there was no room for sweet on her palate anymore — all she could taste was the bitterness of watching her beloved child scream, his cries an echo in her heart — _mother please do not let them take me mother please I do not want to—_

“Mother?” a shy voice asked through her musings, and she almost started as she looked down at its source.

“Ah,” she sighed, voice scratchy from disuse. “Little dragon... you should not have come.”

“Where are the humans, Mother?” queried her beloved Seiros, wide eyes drinking in the aftermath of her vengeance. “Where have they gone?”

“I cannot say, child,” she replied in a measured tone. “Perhaps away from here, where naught is to be found of life. Come, little dragon. Let us away, too.”

“Okay, Mother,” nodded her girl determinedly. “We will look for them somewhere else.”

She did not pause at her daughter’s words.

She could not have.

But she did lament, and the wind at her back howled in recognition of her sorrow.

_Would that I could forget..._ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cat
> 
> (and baby rhea! happy new year to everyone celebrating)


	23. Call of the Wind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allies are sought, and shadows are dragged into light...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im back, but holy moly this chapter was _so_ annoying to write
> 
> featuring a cw: graphic violence (maybe I should stop saying this one now that I've finally remembered to add the archive warning to the entire story?)

Seteth steeples his hands together — and realises the action is ultimately unsatisfying when he does not have a desk to rest his elbows upon.

“This has gone on for long enough,” insists Flayn. “We need _help_.”

Seteth opts to cross his hands over his lap instead.

“We’re being overwhelmed,” agrees Sothis quietly, perched on her bed in the infirmary and absently dangling her legs over its edge. She opens her mouth to say more — but closes it slowly after a moment, continuing to toy listlessly with the rumpled sheet tossed haphazardly on her bed.

“Assuming,” she continues after a long minute of silence, “all of these... _occurrences_ are the work of the same force.”

Seteth spots Rhea sitting much in the same position as him, with her hands held in the _exact_ position he has decided upon. Perhaps he should ask her how she copes, since she somehow makes do without a surface to rest her arms for most of her waking hours...

“Who did you have in mind?” queries Jeralt to Flayn in a thoughtful murmur, giving voice to the question that Seteth is certain everyone in the room had been considering. He does not think anyone has considered an answer, though—

“The only two of our kind not in this room,” replies Flayn instantly, making Jeralt blink and forcing Seteth’s jaw to hang open in surprise.

“How—” begins Rhea, but Flayn cuts her off with an impatient wave of her hand.

“Please,” she huffs, not quite rolling her eyes but replying in a tone of voice that indicates she might as well have. “You and Father were not nearly as clandestine in your discussions about them as you thought. Do not give me that look, Father, I saw you humming and _dancing_ to yourself when we were getting their statues restored.”

Seteth wills himself to not blush at learning that his daughter _had seen the entirety of his utterly embarrassing expression of joy_ , and it is only thanks to an iron will borne of centuries of patience that he barely succeeds.

“I’m lost,” declares Byleth from the corner of the room she has tucked herself into, in a tone that sounds decidedly... lost. “Who are we talking about?”

“My uncles!” replies Flayn cheerily. Seteth watches in amusement as Sothis’ face rapidly cycles through a myriad of emotions at the exclamation — she goes from nonplussed to disbelieving to apprehensive before cautiously settling on excited.

“Wait,” blinks Byleth, her voice somehow containing a mix of every emotion her sister’s face has just displayed. “Sothis has more kids?”

“There are more Nabateans?” echoes Sothis at exactly the same moment, staring at Rhea and Seteth in surprise (and shooting Byleth a brief glare). “I thought you said...”

“Ah,” says Rhea, averting her gaze. Seteth does not envy her the burden of having to explain just why their brothers had placed themselves into voluntary exile, but she gathers an admirable slice of courage and says anyway, “Macuil and Indech — those are their names — did not quite agree with me on... actions to be taken after the war against Nemesis had ended, and so we are... estranged.”

Sothis only raises an eyebrow, and Seteth is reminded once again that her being reincarnated as a human and possessing none of her memories has not in the _slightest_ diminished the sheer terror her presence can still instill in him without even a single word of chastisement — even when one of her arms is imprisoned in thick-set bandages and tied to a sling around her neck.

He clears his throat, hoping to spare Rhea the trouble. “I believe she means to say,” he says when every eye has turned to him and his collar begins feeling uncomfortably warm, “that neither thought very kindly of the idea of the Church of Seiros.”

“Sounds like I might like them already,” muses Sothis. “Though I get the sense neither of you are being completely honest with me...”

Seteth grimaces and averts his eyes, making Jeralt huff out a breath in amusement.

“It’s like ripping off a bandage,” advises Jeralt, giving Seteth a look of deep sympathy that only serves to deepen his apprehension. “She’ll hound you for answers until the end of days if she thinks there’s more to be uncovered. It’s lead her into plenty of trouble before, too, especially with that Incident With The—”

“Dad!” hisses Sothis, covering an embarrassed blush with a hand splayed over her face. “I thought we explicitly agreed not to _ever_ revisit that memory.”

“ _Ever_ ,” agrees Byleth, giving both Jeralt and Sothis a deeply disturbed look that looks incredibly out of place on her. Seteth’s own curiosity perks up, even though the lesson to be learned is ostensibly one of suppressing one’s urges of curiosity—

“Don’t think I’ll get sidetracked from your little omissions,” warns Sothis, wagging a finger at him. Seteth blanches and eyes Rhea for assistance, who only sinks into her chair as if wanting to become invisible.

“Well?” demands Sothis impatiently.

“Er,” hedges Seteth, when it is clear his sibling is likely to be of very little use in this conversation. It seems Jeralt’s advice is the only course of action that remains open to him, and so, “If you must ask, well — Macuil hated you. His opinion is... not likely to have changed much, over the centuries.”

Sothis blinks, and Byleth snickers.

“And Indech would rather have spent his years wasting away inside a cave than be a _figure_ ,” adds Rhea bitterly, her shoulders slumping. “We could have done so much together, but those fools...”

“We did not get along very well in your absence, as you can see,” explains Seteth dryly to a bemused Sothis, even as Rhea continues to rant bitterly against the follies of her brothers. “If I had to pick the most level-headed from amongst Seiros, Macuil, and Indech while they were having one of their _many_ disagreements... I would have picked Cethleann.”

Flayn’s delighted giggle at his praise brings a smile to his face (though he is secretly glad Rhea had not been paying attention to his words in favour of her muttered rant, for the price of his daughter’s laughter would almost certainly not have been worth the cost then), and it only grows wider when Jeralt walks over to pat Sothis’ shoulder in sympathy.

“See?” crows Byleth victoriously at her father. “I _told_ you she was a bad parent without me around.”

* * *

“If you’re sure,” says Edelgard hesitantly.

Sothis does not hesitate to roll her eyes.

“My _arm_ is injured, not my legs,” she replies in the driest tone she can muster.

But something in her softens even as she gestures impatiently at Edelgard — she is only trying to help, after all — and she continues in a gentler voice, “I appreciate your assistance, El. But you couldn’t possibly mother me any more than you’ve already been doing without tying me to your back and carrying me everywhere.”

Edelgard looks for a brief moment like she is seriously considering the thought, though she relents sheepishly at Sothis’ incredulous look.

“I’ll be _fine_ ,” reiterates Sothis, unable to repress a fond smile. “I’m just going to take a walk. Go ace your certification exam.”

“If you’re sure,” repeats Edelgard, albeit with less hesitance this time. But she keeps hovering for a short moment, as if still unsure of something — then steps forward, gingerly hugs Sothis’ uninjured side and gives the sling-and-cast of her wounded arm a tender pat, and walks away at breakneck pace.

Sothis chuckles, and turns to slowly descend the stairs to the lake. _Silly girl,_ she thinks, the smile on her face stretching wider. But it fades, soon, when she remembers the reason she had wanted some independence: the unintended consequences of her injury.

The sun shines bright, today, cutting cheerfully through the bone-chilling wind that occasionally gusts over Garreg Mach. It has not yet begun to snow (although Flayn has assured her she would get only minutes of warning when it does finally happen), but the ground closer to the lake has frosted over, and pretty fractals hang off the small patches of grass planted hither and thither. Sothis marvels briefly at the tranquil comfort of the scene as she steps onto the dock; the bright ball of fire in the sky, straining ceaselessly against the cold that feels only an inch away from blanketing her world in a layer of unyielding frost.

The lake’s serene surface shimmers and winks at her in greeting as she gingerly sits down atop the fishing deck, three planks from the lake’s murky edge. She could while away her recovery, here — the warm rays of the sun in her eyes and the calming scent of the water in her nose would happily keep her in their embrace until she feels ready to face the world again.

 _But I am needed_ , she reminds herself regretfully — then greets the plank of wood directly beside the one she sits on.

“Hi,” replies the plank of wood, then falls silent again.

Sothis waits.

“You found me,” observes the plank placidly.

“I did,” replies Sothis, just as mildly. “You weren’t easy to find.”

The plank does not quite _wince_ , but the quality of the silence that follows their exchange makes Sothis feels like it carries some modicum of guilt nonetheless.

“I’m hiding,” admits the plank, giving credence to her theory. “To contemplate my dishonour to my family.”

Sothis frowns. “And what do you imagine you’ve done?” she inquires, somewhat miffed.

There issues a deep scratching sound from underneath the plank, before Byleth swings herself swiftly up from underneath it and sits down next to Sothis — looking anywhere but at her.

Sothis waits again.

“I went fishing,” says Byleth in a whisper that sounds so shameful it sends a spike of pain through Sothis’ heart. “Instead of going with you and Dad.”

Sothis wraps an arm around her sister’s shoulders — and reaches around to pinch her cheek.

“Ow!” yelps Byleth. “I’m sorry—” she yelps again when Sothis pokes her in the ribs, “Hey! I said I was sorry!”

“You don’t have anything to apologise for, fool,” hisses Sothis, incensed. Byleth finally turns to her, misty-eyed, and Sothis turns a long-suffering roll of her eyes to the sky — before hugging her twin as tightly as she dares with one arm still bandaged to the nines.

“I messed up, I messed up,” chants Byleth into her shoulder in a broken, hiccuping whisper, and Sothis can only squeeze her tighter when her throat closes up and refuses to let her utter all the reassurances she wants to give. “I thought you were — you almost _died_ — and I thought Hubert might have been responsible because he wasn’t there when you were gone and the dates he was gone lined up with when you were attacked so I almost killed him for it, and then when I realised he hadn’t done anything I tried to apologise but he just keeps storming off—”

Sothis blinks.

“You did... what?” she enquires in tones of trepidation when Byleth does not seem inclined to further elaborate.

Byleth draws back from the hug slowly, and sends a look so _terrified_ at Sothis that she almost immediately draws her back into her embrace again.

“I scared him, Sothis,” breathes Byleth, looking down at her hands as if seeing them for the first time. “I haven’t... that hasn’t happened since... since—”

Sothis does not hesitate to firmly place a palm on Byleth’s cheek with a gentle _plap_.

“You _had_ ,” enunciates Sothis forcefully, dredging to the shores of her mind words she has not heard in more than a decade, but words she remembers hearing from their father clearly nonetheless, “trouble expressing your emotions sometimes. That,” she lifts her hand up and smushes the other side of Byleth’s face with another _plap,_ “does _not_ ,” _plop_ , “make you,” _plap plop plap,_ “a demon. Or whatever else you might be thinking of yourself, judging by that — that _look_ on your face—”

“What — what are you doing to her?!” interjects a very scandalised voice.

Sothis lets go of Byleth’s abused cheeks and turns to Flayn, who stands at the dock with a hand on her hip and an expression on her face that perfectly straddles the boundary between horror and morbid curiosity.

“Sibling bonding,” replies Sothis with the straightest face she can muster.

“Sibling bonding,” echoes Byleth weakly a short second later. Something about her raspy voice, thick with tears—

Sothis fails to suppress a giggle.

“If your arm wasn’t broken, I would have thrown you into the lake,” sniffles Byleth, blowing her nose into a suspiciously nice handkerchief she produces from somewhere.

Sothis’ giggles turn into a full-bellied laugh.

“I — admittedly, I do not have any siblings to draw a comparison to, but...” trails off Flayn as Sothis’ laughter subsides, shaking her head slightly in concern. “Does this happen often?”

“My sister is a huge bully,” rats out Byleth in instant agreement, making Flayn gasp almost theatrically.

“Hey!” exclaims Sothis indignantly, whipping her head between the two. “You — Flayn, don’t listen to her,” she implores, and Flayn blinks at her in bewilderment. “She’s _far_ worse than I could ever dream of being! There’s a small town in Gideon that’s still—”

“So, Flayn!” cuts off Byleth loudly, and Sothis huffs at her. “Did you have news to share?”

“Oh, yes!” exclaims Flayn, the bemused look sliding off her face to be replaced with a slight frown. “My brother and I have decided to leave tomorrow. We expect the journey to take a few weeks, and, ah...”

“And...?” prompts Sothis, her brow furrowing as Flayn suddenly averts her eyes to stare intently at the lake’s shimmering surface instead of at them.

“Ah, well, Fa— _Brother_ did say the journey would be difficult with only the two of us, and looking for — er, the people we are looking for, will be... well, it seems only natural that they would be well hidden, as you know, and, ah...” rambles Flayn, sounding so uncharacteristically nervous that Sothis has to rub her ears in alarm.

“You want someone else to come with you,” guesses Byleth softly, and Sothis watches as Flayn’s eyes widen at the utterance — before she closes them briefly and sighs softly in defeat.

“Yes,” admits Flayn, turning her gaze back at the both of them. “I do not wish to burden anyone else with this journey, but — well. I,” she glances shiftily around, and then continues in a lower voice, “I shall be candid with the both of you, as you deserve. I have not seen the world outside the walls of this Monastery for... well, it has been a long time. And I do not know when next I will be able to do so, so—” she squeezes her eyes shut, a look of shame stealing over her features as Sothis exchanges a worried glance with Byleth.

Flayn opens her eyes again, and stares pleadingly at them as she crouches next to where Sothis and Byleth are sitting at the edge of the dock. “Please understand,” she breathes, bowing her head and staring at the chipped wood of the deck. “I love Seteth with all my heart, and I could never wish for a better fa— _brother_ — for all he has done for me. But I cannot bear the thought of what may be my only glance at the outside world for millennia more to be shaded by his — his overbearing protectiveness! If someone you trust were to accompany me, perhaps in their shadow I could stretch my wings — if only for a small, stolen moment, I would... I would be most grateful.”

Sothis exchanges another, more worried glance with Byleth — and then considers.

Byleth’s eyes widen, and she mutely shakes her head.

Sothis cocks an eyebrow at her sister.

Byleth glares at her, then shakes her head again, more insistently this time.

Sothis’ other eyebrow joins its twin.

Byleth’s glare doubles in its intensity, and a slight puff of air escapes her nose.

“You should go,” says Sothis, foregoing their time-honoured tradition of silently arguing.

“I _refuse_ ,” disagrees Byleth vehemently, even as Flayn raises her head to stare at them in surprise.

“You’re not scary,” says Sothis, and Byleth’s eyes widen. Flayn opens her mouth to say something, then closes it again when she seems to realise she has no idea what to say.

“That’s not—” begins Byleth, but Sothis gently interrupts her with a hand on her knee.

“You didn’t believe me,” she accuses softly, and Byleth swallows roughly. “You never believed Dad when he said it, either. But you’ll believe your own eyes, won’t you? Nobody’s going to be scared of you. I know that, but you... you need to go and see, ’leth.”

Byleth’s eyes fall shut of their own accord, and she hangs her head, locks of deep-sea blue shadowing her face. “You haven’t called me that in _years_ ,” she whispers.

“You haven’t acted like this in years,” retorts Sothis, her fingers tightening into a fist at the stormy anger those memories still fill her with. “I’ll be _fine_. Rhea won’t let me out of her sight — she’s _still_ following me around, even though it’s been a whole day since Professor Manuela let me leave the infirmary — and Edelgard is hardly any better with how much she’s fretting _and_ scheming. And the Eagles don’t even seem to care; they’re just as bad as her, carrying around my books and stealing my turns for weapons practice and even helping me put on my armour and — and Dad keeps checking in, too, in his gruff shifty way — I’m going to go mad, soon, but trust me when I say I would probably be less safe locked in a room where the walls were all _pillows_.”

Byleth frowns deeply at her, and Sothis knows by the way her glare fades off into a series of rapid blinks that her sister’s reluctance has almost fully broken.

“I forgive you for abandoning me for the fish, you big goof,” says Sothis fondly, dealing the finishing blow with a playful punch to Byleth’s shoulder — a gesture that feels more familiar to her than even the age-worn callouses on her knuckles. “Go make everyone swoon with your effortlessly weird charm and realise how right I am. _As always_.”

* * *

The icy mountain unravels before him, and Yuri regrets only that he has so little room to—

“Budge _over_ ,” hisses Constance from beside him, and he issues only the briefest of sighs before acquiescing.

In a space smaller than the coffin he wishes to bury Balthus in for landing them in this mess, the devastating duo have sequestered themselves away and arranged for an old farmer and his trusty steed to lead them into the world beyond the darkness of Abyss — into a world far darker, but into which he now regretfully must step out again. Constance shifts next to him, as if disquieted by his thought... but no, what can she know of what he has suffered here?

Or what suffering he has wrought in turn?

“Yuri,” huffs Constance softly. “I do believe we have previously reached an accord on the matter of _not_ plotting alone, yes?”

Yuri sighs again. “So we have,” he issues in a murmur. He looks out the window for a moment longer, then—

“What would you have me do as payment for my breach of our agreement, oh merciful Lady?” he inquires in the mildest of tones, exhaling his frustration in a small cloud of frosty breath as he does his best to keep eye contact with Constance — no easy feat, that, constantly being jostled as they are by the erratic movements of the cart through the frozen mountain pass.

“You can begin by moving your head out of the way,” instructs Constance waspishly, not even bothering to reciprocate his courteous manner. “You’re blocking my view.”

Yuri blinks, then relents with an unsurprised chuckle.

The view Constance so elusively chases after is all the two can see through the small opening in the side of the cart that, Yuri supposes, qualifies as a window — if the qualifier were to squint and stare at it sideways, perhaps. But this window is all that is afforded to them, and so it is through this that the majestic shadow of Faerghus’ most common delicacy towers and unfurls before them: the ice-laden mountain peak.

This particular snow-capped monstrosity seems to reach out forever into the sky, the pearl white hue of the snow merging at some uncertain point with the milky white radiance of the clouds above into a hazy, beautiful mess. The eye cannot tolerate the light bouncing off of the shimmering snow for long, though, and so inevitably Yuri’s gaze travels downwards; down towards the dark soil that makes up the part of the mountain where the snow does not reach. It contrasts starkly with the top half of the towering landmark, a mirror of the duality the world has always shown him: where goes light, must fall shadow.

But shadows are the comfort of a well-loved pair of boots to Yuri by now — worn-down, warm, familiar. He has grown up in their ever-present embrace, after all; hidden away inside a closet, spiders lazing on his arms, the sounds of rhythmic creaking and thumping his only true companions. It had been a lonely existence, the tentacles of dread making a permanent home perched perfectly along his spine — and yet he would have been content with it, because what lurked in the sickly glow beyond the dripping candle-wax was far worse.

But a well-loved pair of boots cannot, by its very nature, last... and neither did the shadows that hid him.

Yuri’s hair was too long, his mother had told him one day. _Too bright by half_ , she had claimed in that fretful, wavering manner of hers, and it was not the only thing she had bitten at the edges of her nails over in the weeks following; his face was too angled and too perfect, his eyes too starry and too ever-scheming, his voice too mellifluous and too enticing for the shadows to do much but highlight them instead. His mother had still tried — bless her soul, she had toiled night and day to hide him away — and succeeded, to his surprise then (and relief now). Nothing but the balm of time had touched him thanks to her; he had grown taller, brighter, and stronger, even as the shadows had curled themselves around his form like a possessive paramour, unwilling to let go of the home they had found in him.

He had only begun to dream of flying free of them when the sickness struck.

It had torn him down to shreds, leaving him unable to do anything but watch the sky grow ever distant as he lay there; trapped in a prison of his own skin that he quickly learned to hate. The shadows had almost taken him, then, powerless as he was to fight back — until _he_ returned. A frail old man, as unassuming as they come, bringing with him a light that cast no shadow — and along with it, a fire of kindness in his soul Yuri had been only too glad to arm himself with.

Seven years later, Yuri had spent his first night in Abyss curled up in the shadows of the rafters reminiscing about his childhood, remembering fondly the years he had been afraid of the world awaiting beyond the sickly pale light.

But seven days after that, Constance von Nuvelle had spent her first night in Abyss sobbing her heart out as she brokenly whispered the names of her slaughtered family over and over again, promising emptily to not let their names be lost to the sands of eternity.

No, shadows are likely not the most comfortable of companions for Constance von Nuvelle — even if she would — loudly, and often — have you know otherwise when standing in their venomous embrace.

 _Small wonder she’s drinking in the sights of the world beyond like a woman parched,_ he thinks, _even though sunlight isn’t exactly her most beloved thing in the world..._

“There’s prettier places than Faerghus in the winter out there, you know,” muses Yuri after Constance has stared out of the tiny window for many long, excruciatingly boring minutes. “I’m pretty sure you’ve even seen some of them.”

“The beauty of the land is not why I am so carefully observing it,” retorts Constance. “In fact... you!” she exclaims, rapping her knuckles sharply on the thin piece of wood that doubles as the front wall of their transport. “You may stop the carriage!”

“Carriage? Aren’t you getting a bit carried away with the descriptors there?” snarks Yuri, even as he frowns at her action. They are close enough to their destination now that it doesn’t really matter where they stop, he supposes, but he would rather not brave the elements on their way down from the remainder of the snowy heights—

 _Nevermind_ , he thinks to himself with a snort as Constance steps outside without the slightest trace of hesitation, rising reluctantly to follow her outside.

Yuri’s first step into the freshly fallen snow sounds a _crunch_ that seems to echo deep into his skull, and the sharp twist of pain that shoots up his leg as he almost trips on the heel of his boot makes him quietly curse the woman he has so foolishly decided to partner up with for this little excursion.

She _has_ timed their stop perfectly, though, to her credit. They stand underneath an archway that rises at just the right angle to halt the sun’s weakly shimmering rays in their tracks, and Yuri feels lighter than usual as he recovers from his misstep and strolls towards Constance with markedly less tension in his spine than he would usually have carried at the prospect of facing her in the sunlight.

“—don’t be foolish,” Constance is chiding the kindly old farmer who had agreed to lead them out this way. “We shall make use of my prodigious skill at magic, good sir. I assure you, the skill of Nu— urm.”

“...N’urm?” queries the farmer hesitantly, even as Yuri stealthily removes his boot from atop Constance’s.

“Ahem — yes, that is my... my name, after all. My family’s, that is, and, ah...” trails off Constance lamely, flicking her eyes at Yuri in a desperate cry for assistance. “My friend here, ah...”

“Forgive my companion, good man,” interjects Yuri smoothly, deciding to be merciful to her. “Being cooped up so long clearly hadn’t helped her any. We owe you for carrying us out this way.”

“Tha’s alright, young master Underhill, I repay m’ debts... but where will ye go in all this snow?” worries the kindly old farmer.

“She really _is_ good at magic,” replies Yuri with a rueful grin, as Constance turns up her nose and steps outside the shade of the mountain pass — a cloud of shadow trailing above her the only thing shielding her from the horrors of the sun on its other side.

“Are you back to being all apologetic now, Shady Lady?” cheerfully asks Yuri once he has reassured the farmer that they won’t become icicles under his cart’s wheels in the snow, and has caught up to Constance. “Or am I still speaking with Constance von... urm?”

Constance issues a growl that she would probably describe as rather unladylike, so he chalks up her reply as a resounding _no_. He allows himself a slight chuckle at her expense, too — then decides he wishes to live to see another dawn, and so lets his gaze finally settle over the land that shimmers so brightly underneath the gold that issues from the sky.

Faerghus possesses that curious quality of being the most barren land many have ever heard of; certainly those who live here would not dispute the claim. And yet there is a feeling that wells up in him, watching the barely-cobbled path leading down the mountain weave through nothing but snow and dirt — a feeling of a people hardy, and a land hardier. It seems impossible that in this vast, inhospitable expanse, where lies nothing to hear but a lonely echo, nothing to smell but a gust of crisp wind, nothing to touch but a handful of cold dirt, and nothing to see but a reflection of the void — that in this place so desolate, a people could not survive but _live_ , live full lives that carry no less meaning than the shadows Yuri had spent his childhood with—

“Nothing,” mutters Constance to herself. “And yet they seem...”

Yuri eyes her.

“Something on your mind?” he inquires gently, squashing down his urge to tease her for being the caricature of a spoiled noble witnessing the world beyond their opulence. She will not learn if he teases her too much, after all, and besides which—

“Well,” says Constance, daintily making her way down the path carved into the side of the mountain towards the barely visible town below, “I suppose I may have learned something about myself.”

“Oh?” wonders Yuri, hopping nimbly through the snow after her. She makes for quite the inconspicuous figure, wrapped up in a nondescript brown cloak and warm white wool as she is—

“If even the commoners here can build themselves proper lives given so little to work with,” proclaims the last Nuvelle, “then a noble like myself should excel at the restoration of her House with little effort!”

—until she opens her mouth, at least. Yuri wonders if he can somehow convince her to let him do the talking—

“Furthermore,” continues Constance, then surprisingly lowers her voice as they near the small waysign that informs them that they have now left Fraldarius territory. “I am possessed of far greater charisma than the folk who live in this desolate land — and perhaps more importantly for our task here, I carry the weight of House Nuvelle with me, temporarily shattered though it may be. I would be remiss to ignore the advantages that affords us in our hunt.”

— _probably not._

“Try not to exert too much of your noble dominance over these poor folk, though,” cautions Yuri dryly, observing the stack of three houses, a barn, and an inn that passes for a town in Faerghus. “They might not be equipped to handle the — oh Goddess she’s already halfway inside the inn.”

Yuri curses his luck again and follows hurriedly after her, praying his source had been correct about having spotted that demonic-looking woman near this area. If only Balthus hadn’t been insistent on hiding from those bounty hunters, Yuri could have asked him to come along instead — or even Hapi; blessed, no-nonsense, blunt Hapi — who refused to leave Abyss out of consideration for the safety of the people on the surface.

 _Unbelievable,_ thinks Yuri wryly as he steps inside the dingy inn and watches Constance gawk about at the interior _. The only option really was someone who couldn’t be more conspicuous if she tried._

Though not much of the exterior of the inn had been visible underneath the piles of snow surrounding it, the interior certainly tells a... _story_. The pages of this particular story, for instance, happen to be dog-eared and yellowed with age; the walls are grimy with soot and dirt, what few bar stools remain are barely held together with bits of twine and hacked together legs, and the tables are stained with what Yuri guesses must be several decades worth of spills. The few patrons of the inn who remain sober enough at midday to look up at the two newcomers do so, but turn away out of politeness when Constance gawks back at them.

Yuri smiles to himself, takes a long whiff of the smell of aged alcohol that has permeated every inch of the place, and sighs in contentment.

“Yuri—” begins Constance in a whisper as he passes her on his way to the front of the inn, but Yuri casually slips his arm through hers and drags her along gently. She makes an offended sound — no doubt itching for an explanation — but he offers her only a wink and a smirk in response as he casually sits at the bar in front of the innkeep and waves the bearded man over.

“Aye, what’ll it be, travellers?” queries the man in a voice pitched much higher than Yuri would have expected, given his almost comically bushy beard and scarred face. “Drinks for the road?”

“A nice sharp ale wouldn’t go amiss,” agrees Yuri, then considers his companion from the corner of his eye.

“And you, lady?” hums the innkeep, turning to Constance. She blinks at him, seeming somewhat stunned — then gestures airily at Yuri and proclaims, “Whatever he’s having.”

“Aye, two sharp ales comin’ up,” confirms the man. Constance stares at him for a moment longer, and then opens her mouth, sending a jolt of apprehension through Yuri—

“You’re not very busy today,” observes Constance in a tone so casual Yuri can hardly believe it.

“Ah,” grunts the innkeep in his oddly squeaky tone as he pours the drink into a jug. “Funny you say tha’, actually. Had more folk’n here this morning than I reckon’ve ever witnessed these walls before. Somethin’ about a legendary rabbit hunt... wonder if they’ll be back soon. Thought you two might have been with ’em at first.”

“Legendary rabbit hunt?” blinks Yuri, then shakes his head slowly at the thought. “Nah, we stopped by for drinks and some news,” he says instead of indulging his curiosity. “We’re looking for a woman. The one who likes bones without soup might have told you about her.”

“Bones without— ah. I see,” replies the innkeep, rummaging beneath the counter for something. “Haven’t seen the one you’re searchin’ for, I’m afraid.”

Yuri frowns — he is certain his contact had given him the correct code, and if the innkeep had known it too, he would have responded with the correct reply instantly.

 _Something feels off_...

“Strange,” muses Yuri lightly. “The man I mentioned said she’d passed by this way...”

“Must not have stopped by at the inn,” shrugs the innkeep as he continues to rummage beneath the counter, a nervous undercurrent to his tone now plainly audible. “Shame, that...”

Yuri’s frown deepens. Surely it cannot take that long to fetch a pair of jugs—

The faint, almost inaudible sound of steel scraping against wood tickles Yuri’s ears.

“Bones with no soup sound rather unappetising,” comments Constance loudly as Yuri reaches stealthily for his dagger, making the innkeep freeze and Yuri’s eyes widen. “You have...” she wrinkles her nose, “odd taste in friends.”

“Well,” replies Yuri in a strained tone, now almost certain that the man at the counter is reaching for a weapon of some kind, “I suppose I have to make do with what I get.”

“I suppose so,” agrees Constance breezily, the jab flying straight past her. “Although, perhaps it would—”

The doors of the inn swing open, admitting a surprising amount of noisy chatter—

—and Yuri’s heart almost stops beating when he turns to glance at the throng that bustles its way into the inn.

“Fresh rabbit, straight from Caerbannog!” proclaims a familiar-looking mercenary, drawing a round of cheers from the suddenly suffocating room. The woman has eyes of cobalt that seem to tear straight through the crowd to send him a look that sears through his soul—

“Rabbit soup for everyone!” she shouts again to another round of cheers, breaking her electrifying gaze.

Yuri turns back to the counter — and almost chokes on his own spit when he sees the innkeeper draw himself up and pull out a claymore almost as wide as his face from underneath the counter, a clatter of mugs scattering about the floor.

“Everyone ’cept for you folk,” he growls, and takes a swing at Yuri that shears straight through the dagger he raises to block it. Yuri barely manages to fall out of his seat in time—

“Enemies!” bellows the innkeeper, just as Constance raises her hands to shove him away with a wild gust of magic.

There is a moment of stunned silence before the crowd roars as one and turns to them, and Yuri manages to barely swing the bar stool behind him to fend off a particularly enthusiastic patron that rushes them. The hit connects into the man’s face with a satisfying _thunk_ — but the momentum of his swing is too exacting, and he cannot recover in time to parry the wild-eyed punch a woman with matted brown hair throws at him. He braces himself with gritted teeth for the oncoming blow—

—and watches in rapt fascination as she swings at a point three feet beside him, and then again for good measure.

 _What_ —

“Run!” screeches Constance in his ear, and he fervently agrees to take back everything unkind he has thought of her over the past two days of their journey as he slips between an overly handsy old man and his more sedate sidekick, then trips them up for good measure as he dashes towards the doors.

But the chaos his maneuver creates strikes him with inspiration. Yuri has not titled himself a mockingbird for show, after all, so he knows an opportunity when he creates one; a misdirected punch here, a slap there, some pulls at skirts and tugs at trousers—

The mob turns into a bar fight in the beat of a wing, and Yuri grins savagely as he smashes a bottle over some poor fool’s head. The man goes out like a candle in the blizzard, and Yuri ducks underneath a stray flailing arm and slams the heel of his palm into the back of a woman’s head, sending her reeling into unconsciousness. Ducking and weaving he moves through the throng that steadily thins — some part of him shifts uneasily in concern when he does not spot Constance, but the part that remains in control now shrugs it off. Constance is better than anybody he knows at illusory magic, after all, as evidenced by the crowd’s utter inability to land a single hit on him. He grins savagely, preparing to sidestep yet another assailant—

—when suddenly his eyes meet a gaze of cobalt that sears through his soul, and the lightning-fast punch that follows rocks his head hard enough that he sees the stars the Goddess must surely have descended from.

“Ow,” he groans in summary of his thoughts, looking up when his vision has stopped feeling like he is floating underwater. “You sure pack a mean punch.”

“Thanks,” replies the mercenary he recalls is known as Byleth Eisner. “Byleth,” she confirms, pointing briefly at herself, before offering him a hand up. “I like fish bones, but the soup always makes me drowsy.”

He blinks at her in stunned confusion.

“Yuri Leclerc,” calls the disappointed voice of Seteth before he can voice his pained gratitude and introduce himself, and he looks back to see a mutinous-looking Constance trailing after him, a short green-haired girl holding her hostage with a ball of fire held to her back. “And Constance von Nuvelle. I had hoped not to see you again in such circumstances.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” bemusedly disappoints Yuri, still thrown by the thought of his trusted contact being the strange blue-haired mercenary they’d once chased away from Abyss. “I’m not sure what you expected, though — given that you’re the one who banished us.”

* * *

“I don’t understand,” gripes Flayn, a slight whine to her tone. “It is so much hotter here, and yet barely a few miles away we nearly froze to our deaths!”

“Well, it might be hot,” opines Byleth cheerfully, “but at least we didn’t have to fight off an army of eldritch horrors on the way.”

Flayn shifts against the slab of stone they are crouched behind and gives Byleth an unreadable look.

“...what?” utters Yuri numbly from her other side.

Byleth merely shoots him a vaguely ominous smile, carefully avoids Constance’s timid gaze peeking over his shoulder, and takes another peek over the ruins.

The gargantuan slab of stone that conceals the group from view is nestled neatly amongst the shimmering golden dunes of the Sreng desert, its worn white surface glimmering merrily and painting an attractive target for all and sundry to seek out in hopes of finding lost treasure. Byleth knows such dreams blind whatever hunters that deign to pursue them, though, and knows also that a group like theirs would go easily unnoticed in the spectacle of these ruins that surround the enormous cavern any hunter worth their salt would be drawn to.

The cavern in question is an enormous bore driven deep into a cliff that towers over the desert, the inside of which appears to be merely a long, continuous shadow — a shadow Seteth has long since vanished into. He had claimed, tone low (and glance suspicious at the stragglers that they have picked up) that his brother had chosen to retreat here, and that they would do well to let him speak to his sibling alone.

Why his brother would choose to live amongst dunes of molten sand and miserable heat and nightmarish creatures, Byleth cannot begin to fathom.

The purple-haired man who she has heard called a mockingbird had taken great exception to this plan once he’d been told of it — but his companion had fallen eerily silent, none of her haughty demeanour from earlier returning to the fore. Byleth had worried, at first, that the woman — who’d smarmily introduced herself as Constance von Nuvelle — was plotting in silence; after all, she knows almost for a fact that the ridiculously intricate illusion in the depth of Garreg Mach was the gold-haired sorceress’ work, and she does not intend to ever take such a threat lightly.

Or so she had thought, at least, until—

“Such a thing... it would be no less than I deserve,” hears Byleth issue from the illustrious mage’s direction, and her brow creases in ever-mounting concern for this... oddly-behaved woman.

A woman who has previously tried to kill her, and who has also, by Byleth’s count, apologised no less than seven times within the past hour for the apparent crime of existing.

“I am aware I have already questioned you on this,” begins Flayn, shooting a look of deep concern at Constance that echoes Byleth’s thoughts, “but are you sure you are alright?”

“For a lowly being like myself to have worried you so... it would be better if I had not come here,” breathes Constance miserably. “Please, accept my deepest apologies.”

Yuri sighs.

“Like I said, the sunlight doesn’t do her any favours,” he grunts, giving his friend a sympathetic look. “Don’t worry, you’ll learn to miss this side of her as soon as we’re back in the shade.”

“Is it...” hesitates Flayn, then rallies forth with her question. “Is it because you have not chanced upon sunlight in so long, living so deep underground?”

Yuri gives Flayn an incredulous stare that makes her flush in embarrassment.

“We aren’t vampires, despite your fancies to the contrary,” he says dryly. “Constance’s... condition is a circumstance unique to her alone.”

“And such an inconvenience it is to all those I happen upon,” says Constance sadly. “I would prostrate myself before you in shame but for my wish to spare your eyes the trouble of such a hideous sight.”

“There, there,” consoles Yuri with a long-suffering sigh, patting her on the shoulder. Byleth smiles in bemusement at the scene, but something at the corner of her eye distracts her.

She squints towards the cavern and sees a figure emerge from it that _might_ be Seteth, but the sweat trickling down her forehead and into her eyes has made her judgement of such a faraway sight questionable at best.

“Hey, uh... what horrors were you talking about, though?” asks Yuri, glancing behind them nervously.

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” casually waves off Byleth, now almost certain that the shape... _limping?_ out of the cave is Seteth. “I’m pretty sure Sothis and I burned the last of their nests down when we were last here.”

“...nests?” squeaks Flayn. Byleth glances reassuringly at her, and yet she knows it is an empty gesture — the smile she wears now can never reach her eyes, because a nightmare dances behind them too horrid to be—

“He _is_ limping,” mutters Byleth a half moment later. “Flayn, get ready to heal him. Yuri — can I trust you to not stab me in the back?”

“Not at all,” reassures Yuri with a lopsided grin. Byleth snorts at his cheek, then draws a sheathed blade from the bag next to her and hands it to him, hilt-first.

“Try to do it after we do what we came here to do, then,” she advises him wryly.

“If only I knew what that was,” retorts Yuri dryly, rolling his eyes. “But as you wish, friend.”

“Friend?” blinks Byleth in surprise, then shakes her head. “Nevermind. Constance, your magic is... formidable. I’m admittedly,” she grimaces at the vambrace on her arm that hides a bone-white patchwork of scars, “not at my best right now, so if this threat is what I think it is — don’t get up yet, Flayn, we don’t know who might be watching from the cliffs — we _will_ need your help.”

Flayn starts anxiously at the mention of her name even as Constance offers a despondent, “If you have need of this wretch, I shall do my best to not disappoint.” Byleth purses her lips, but elects to attempt raising the woman’s spirits sometime _after_ they finish dealing with—

“Come quickly!” shouts Seteth as he approaches them, leaning heavily on his spear. “Flayn, I — thank you,” he says, sighing as Flayn’s magic swirls around his leg, “but we must hurry. Ma — ah, my _cousin_ is in grave danger. I fear if we do not hurry, he will be lost to us.”

“Hurrying,” cautions Byleth grimly, “is the wrong move. Yuri, aim for the neck. You’ll know what I mean. Constance, Thunder. Or Fire, if you can get it hot enough. Seteth, use your lance to keep them at bay.”

“I have learned as much through hard experience,” agrees Seteth with a grimace as they begin venturing back to the cave, Byleth drawing a sword as she leads them. _Fish-brain,_ she can almost hear Sothis’ voice scold. _I told you there could have been a nest left in that cave._

“You were right,” mutters Byleth aloud in defeat. Sothis may be the instigator of most of their antics that land them in the oceans of trouble they regularly swim their way through, but she is just as often the architect of the raft that carries them to the safety of land. “Should’ve cleared that cavern...”

“I had thought, of the two of you, that your sister was the tactician,” whispers Flayn quietly as they slither silently through the burning sands. “But you sound just as confident as her when you lead.”

“She likes to read her boring tactical tomes as bedtime stories to help me sleep,” replies Byleth just as quietly, shrugging a shoulder. “I suppose some of them stuck.”

“I can—” begins to reply Flayn, but her words are swallowed by a shout that sounds from afar — from the other side of the ruins that surround the strange cavern in the strange desert.

“Take every last penny’s worth from their corpses!” screams a bandit, and two more join him in his charge. Byleth’s eyes widen, a vision of terror playing before her eyes. _No, no, you fools, stay—_

But the vision is more of a memory, and the ground shakes for only a brief instant in warning before it opens up — before the dark beyond the dark leaps into the light.

A gargantuan maw is her first impression of it — rows upon rows of only teeth are visible, like a shark that swims in the sand. But its jump is more that of a whale, aiming ever-upwards; the sheer impact of its thunderous exit from the sand shoots the brave, foolish thieves high into the air. But they do not discover miraculous flight, and the land-borne shark does not care for their dreams of freedom — a single gnashing of teeth, and the bandits’ wails of agony are silenced forever before the worm reverses course and vanishes into the abyss from which it had spawned.

Byleth remains frozen in remembered frustration and horror for a long moment, and then curses as she begins sprinting towards the cavern.

“What is that thing?!” screams Flayn as they all follow in her wake, leaving clouds of dust. Byleth only wordlessly points to the cave’s entrance in answer as it grows ever larger, and the thundering of the ground behind them grows ever closer—

—and breaks off as they step onto solid ground.

Byleth almost melts into a puddle in relief, and Yuri unleashes several curses she is sure she has only heard her father utter with such fluency before.

“What on Fódlan...” breathes Constance, self-deprecation forgotten in her horror. “Is that the creature you had requested I smite with Thunder?”

“Yes,” agrees Byleth, her mind screaming incomprehensible warnings at her. She shakes her head _— where is the danger?_ — but they do not fade—

“Behind you,” hisses Yuri, and she turns to witness another one of those wretched worms slithering ominously _inside_ the cave. Her eyes widen in surprise — and then narrow in determination, because this worm is several times smaller than its sibling outside.

“We can take it,” she announces in a rushed breath to everyone around her, and gets disbelieving looks in reply. “I’ve done it before,” she promises, and shudders in memory. “Too many times. The head is its weakness. Destroy the head, and it stops moving. Forever.”

“I have a feeling destroying the head is far easier said than done,” mutters Yuri, but draws his borrowed blade with aplomb and steps into line with her. “Directions, captain?”

_What would Sothis do...?_

“We’ll approach it from the right,” decides Byleth randomly after a half second of thought reminding her that her track record of predicting Sothis’ likely actions is poorer than that of a coin flip. “Constance and Flayn, attack from the left. Seteth, you’ve got the longest reach, so...”

“I must face it from the front,” agrees Seteth grimly. “Very well. On my mark...”

Byleth readies herself—

“Go!”

—and sprints as fast as she can when Seteth rushes it with his spear-lance. She watches his first attack draw blood, the green pus-like fluid that doubles as this creature’s blood spurt out in a spray of disgust — and can only watch in stupefaction when it ignores the threat posed to it by the green-haired man and turns to jump at her instead.

“You... remember me?” asks Byleth quietly, her voice drowned out by the sound of Flayn’s fireball hitting the back of its neck in conjunction with Constance’s... she isn’t quite sure what the sickly purple burst of magic is, but is sure it spells nothing but trouble for the creature. And yet even as it thrashes in pain she only feels... touched, somehow; flattered, perhaps, that after more than half a decade she is remembered fondly by the descendants of the creatures she had so brutally slain—

“Move!” screams Yuri at her, and she regains her senses with a shake of her head as she meets the worm’s charge with a sideways roll and a wild swing of her blade. It catches, surprisingly, on the worm’s rubbery hide as it retreats into yet another fireball from Flayn — perhaps this one is not a descendant, then, and is instead one of the ones she had fought so long ago. That would explain why it seems so sluggish, compared to its cousin outside—

Seteth effectively puts an end to her contemplation by leaping at the worm and shearing off its head with a single sweep of his lance.

Byleth bows to its corpse in respect. It is by far the most disgusting thing she has ever seen, but it fought well, and _that_ deserves respect.

“We did it,” pants Flayn, her hands smoking with the effort of producing the fireballs she has constantly been pelting the worm with.

“Yes, we—” begins Byleth in agreement, but is cut off by a noise of concern issuing from Constance.

“My disgust at this situation is immeasurable, and yet I — what is... _that_?” she exclaims, pointing at the centre of the cavern.

Byleth frowns, seeing nothing but shadows and smooth ground where she points. Except... wait, is that—

The ground shakes and splits open as the horror from the outside forces its way in from beneath — creating a gaping chasm that effectively bars them from leaving their battleground.

Byleth chokes on her spit when she sees the dozens of worms _swarming_ inside the hole the giant worm has made.

“How — how are we to fight these?!” hisses Constance, agitated. Byleth only shakes her head wordlessly as they all subconsciously huddle closer together — perhaps in realisation of the grave danger they are in, as the biggest of the worms cranes its long neck around, searching—

“DOWN!” roars Seteth so suddenly Byleth instinctively jumps instead of ducking. She does as instructed a half-second later, though, with Flayn and Yuri both crashing down on top of her as she hits the ground, and watches with eyes wide as Seteth slams his spear into the ground and utters words she has never heard before — words that form a bluish-gold dome around them that _hums_ with power.

A moment passes where the only sound she hears is the eerie squelching of the wriggling worms, barely audible over the thunderous beat of her heart. And yet it feels like there is another sound, something deeper, something—

Something like the sudden explosion of the fires of the sun that set alight the inside of the cavern.

Out from the most shadowy corner of the cavern rolls an ocean of white-hot fury, burning so bright Byleth’s eyelids squeeze shut instantly. And yet all she still sees is white seared into her eyes, the billowing fire hotter and brighter than anything she has ever witnessed before. Seteth’s barrier, which she cannot see anymore but can just barely feel as a slight pressure on the back of her neck, feels like it strains mightily against the tide of death that slams against it, and her skin prickles intensely at the barest amount of heat that escapes through it. Moment by moment this heat builds; her skin first feels like she is sitting in a scalding hot spring, and then like she is swimming inside a pit of lava, and then as if she is floating inside the _sun itself—_

The heat vanishes as quickly as it had arrived, and Byleth opens her eyes in a daze to see the entire army of worms turned into radiant molten _glass_.

The glow of the carnage dims slightly as the glass cools, though it still throws into sharp relief every inch of the voluminous cavern. In its light she sees the creatures become nothing but a distant memory as their molten forms slowly harden into misshapen mockeries of their former selves, the glow of their corpses dimming along with their lives. Byleth thinks, for a moment, that something flickers above the graveyard of monsters—

—and stares with jaw wide open at the shape that descends onto the perch made from the fossilised carcass of what had been, until now, the most terrifying thing she had ever seen.

But this shape, now, takes that spot in her mind, even though some part of her can only marvel at its beauty. Long, elegant talons attach to wings wider than the widest city gate; their halcyon shimmer leaves behind a sparkle in the air that fades very gently. Powerful, corded sinew wraps around burly legs that support the being they belong to; the scaly silver hide that covers them seems to leave an impression of endless incandescence on whatever eyes witness it. But it is nothing compared to the grinning mouth of the thing; horns set into an elongated skull stand starkly behind it, their hue darker than a starless night, and beneath them golden eyes gleam with an intelligence oh-so-terrible.

“Cichol,” booms the dragon in a voice that almost makes Byleth’s ears bleed with the force it imparts. “Why have you come?”

Seteth stands tall, and replies in a tone miraculously unshaken, “Macuil. We are in need of your assistance.”

The dragon rumbles in thought as Flayn slowly extricates herself from on top of Byleth. “What have you to — ah, now that face takes me back. You are as you ever were, Cethleann.”

“Uncle,” greets Flayn, voice still slightly shaken from their ordeal as she gives Yuri and Constance a nervous glance. “You look... well.”

“I _am_ well. As for your request... explain,” grumbles the dragon known apparently as Macuil, disdainfully flicking a tail wider than a tree in Seteth’s direction.

“The request is mine — and from Seiros,” elaborates Seteth. “The ancient enemy—”

The echoing laughter that ensues from that grinning mouth silences Seteth, shaking the very foundations of the cavern with its force.

“Fuck off,” it says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that was one of my two f-bomb allowances for this story! :D (still not sure if I used it well enough though)
> 
> more backstory for the twins! and some sneaky pieces of the ever-widening puzzle... ;)


End file.
